Electron-Doped Sr2IrO4: An Analogue of Hole-Doped Cuprate Superconductors Demonstrated by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

Y. J. Yan; M. Q. Ren; H. C. Xu; B. P. Xie; R. Tao; H. Y. Choi; N. Lee; Y. J. Choi; T. Zhang; D. L. Feng

doi:10.1103/PhysRevX.5.041018

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Electron-Doped Sr2IrO4: An Analogue of Hole-Doped Cuprate Superconductors Demonstrated by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

Y. J. Yan, M. Q. Ren, H. C. Xu, B. P. Xie, R. Tao, H. Y. Choi, N. Lee, Y. J. Choi, T. Zhang, D. L. Feng

DOI 10.1103/PhysRevX.5.041018 · Physical Review X

T1

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Abstract

Sr2IrO4 was predicted to be a high-temperature superconductor upon electron doping since it highly resembles the cuprates in crystal structure, electronic structure, and magnetic coupling constants. Here, we report a scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS) study of Sr2IrO4 with surface electron doping by depositing potassium (K) atoms. We find that as the electron doping increases, the system gradually evolves from an insulating state to a normal metallic state, via a pseudogaplike phase, and a phase with a sharp, V-shaped low-energy gap with about 95% loss of density of state (DOS) at EF. At certain K coverage (0.5–0.6 monolayer), the magnitude of the low-energy gap is 25–30 meV, and it closes at around 50 K. Our observations show that the electron-doped Sr2IrO4 remarkably resembles hole-doped cuprate superconductors.

Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval

Formula	Reported Tc (K)	Pressure (GPa)	Type
Sr2IrO4 Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula.	50	Pressure not reported	unknown