We study magnetotransport properties of the electron-doped superconductor Pr2-xCexCuO4±δ with x=0.14 in magnetic fields up to 92 T, and observe Shubnikov-de Haas magnetic quantum oscillations. The oscillations display a single frequency F=255±10 T, indicating a small Fermi pocket that is ∼1% of the two-dimensional Brillouin zone and consistent with a Fermi surface reconstructed from the large holelike cylinder predicted for these layered materials.

Electrons in materials with linear dispersion behave as massless Weyl- or Dirac-quasiparticles, and continue to intrigue due to their close resemblance to elusive ultra-relativistic particles as well as their potential for future electronics. Yet the experimental signatures of Weyl-fermions are often subtle and indirect, in particular if they coexist with conventional, massive quasiparticles. Here we show a pronounced anomaly in the magnetic torque of the Weyl semimetal NbAs upon entering the quantum limit state in high magnetic fields.

The observation of a reconstructed Fermi surface via quantum oscillations in hole-doped cuprates opened a path towards identifying broken symmetry states in the pseudogap regime. However, such an identification has remained inconclusive due to the multi-frequency quantum oscillation spectra and complications accounting for bilayer effects in most studies. We overcome these impediments with high-resolution measurements on the structurally simpler cuprate HgBa2CuO4+δ (Hg1201), which features one CuO2 plane per primitive unit cell.

Using an exact numerical solution and semiclassical analysis, we investigate quantum oscillations (QOs) in a model of a bilayer system with an anisotropic (elliptical) electron pocket in each plane. Key features of QO experiments in the high temperature superconducting cuprate YBCO can be reproduced by such a model, in particular the pattern of oscillation frequencies (which reflect "magnetic breakdown" between the two pockets) and the polar and azimuthal angular dependence of the oscillation amplitudes.

The electrical and thermal Hall conductivities of the cuprate superconductor YBa2Cu3Oy, σxy and κxy, were measured in a magnetic field up to 35 T, at a hole concentration (doping) p=0.11. In the T=0 limit, we find that the Wiedemann-Franz law, κxy/T=(π2/3)(kB/e)2σxy, is satisfied for fields immediately above the vortex-melting field Hvs. This rules out the existence of a vortex liquid at T=0 and it puts a clear constraint on the nature of the normal state in underdoped cuprates, in a region of the doping phase diagram where charge-density-wave order is known to exist.

Torque magnetization measurements on YBa2Cu3Oy (YBCO) at doping y=6.67 (p=0.12), in dc fields (B) up to 33 T and temperatures down to 4.5 K, show that weak diamagnetism persists above the extrapolated irreversibility field Hirr(T=0)≈24 T. The differential susceptibility dM/dB, however, is more rapidly suppressed for B16 T than expected from the properties of the low field superconducting state, and saturates at a low value for fields B24 T.

The authors note that the author name S. A. Sabok should instead appear as S. A. Sabok-Sayr. The corrected author line appears below. The online version has been corrected. © 2018 National Academy of Sciences. All Rights Reserved.

We report drive-response experiments on individual superconducting vortices on a plane, a realization for a (1+1)-dimensional directed polymer in random media. For this we use magnetic force microscopy to image and manipulate individual vortices trapped on a twin boundary in YBa2Cu3O7-δ near optimal doping. We find that when we drag a vortex with the magnetic tip, it moves in a series of jumps. As theory suggests, the jump-size distribution does not depend on the applied force and is consistent with power-law behavior.

The highest superconducting transition temperatures in the cuprates are achieved in bilayer and trilayer systems, highlighting the importance of interlayer interactions for high T c. It has been argued that interlayer hybridization vanishes along the nodal directions by way of a specific pattern of orbital overlap. Recent quantum oscillation measurements in bilayer cuprates have provided evidence for a residual bilayer-splitting at the nodes that is sufficiently small to enable magnetic breakdown tunneling at the nodes.

In the quest for superconductors with higher transition temperatures (Tc), one emerging motif is that electronic interactions favorable for superconductivity can be enhanced by fluctuations of a broken-symmetry phase.