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Science 16 January 1998:
Vol. 279. no. 5349, pp. 345 - 348
DOI: 10.1126/science.279.5349.345
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Research Articles

Absence of a Spin Gap in the Superconducting Ladder Compound Sr2Ca12Cu24O41

H. Mayaffre, P. Auban-Senzier, M. Nardone, D. Jérome, * D. Poilblanc, C. Bourbonnais, U. Ammerahl, G. Dhalenne, A. Revcolevschi

Transport and copper-63 nuclear magnetic resonance measurements of the Knight shift and relaxation time T1 performed on the two-leg spin ladders of Sr2Ca12Cu24O41 single crystals as a function of pressure show a collapse of the gap in ladder spin excitations when superconductivity is stabilized at 31 kilobars. This result suggests that the superconducting phase in these materials may be connected to this transition and the collapse of the spin gap, and support the prediction made with exact diagonalization techniques in two-leg isotropic t - J ladder models of a transition between a low-doping spin gap phase and a gapless regime.

H. Mayaffre, P. Auban-Senzier, M. Nardone, D. Jérome, Laboratoire de Physique des Solides URA 002 (associé au CNRS), Université Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay, France.
D. Poilblanc, Laboratoire de Physique Quantique UMR 5626 (associé au CNRS), Université Paul Sabatier, 31062 Toulouse, France.
C. Bourbonnais, Centre de Recherche en Physique du Solide, Département de Physique, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada J1K2R1.
U. Ammerahl, Laboratoire de Chimie des Solides, URA 446 (associé au CNRS), Université Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay, France, and II Physikalisches Institut, Universität zu Köln, Zülpicher Strasse 77 D-50937 Köln, Germany.
G. Dhalenne and A. Revcolevschi, Laboratoire de Chimie des Solides, URA 446 (associé au CNRS), Université Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay, France.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed.

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Field-Induced Superconductivity in a Spin-Ladder Cuprate.
J. H. Schon, M. Dorget, F. C. Beuran, X. Z. Xu, E. Arushanov, M. Lagues, and C. D. Cavellin (2001)
Science 293, 2430-2432
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