# 3D-melting features of the irreversibility line in overdoped Bi2Sr2CuO6 at ultra-low temperature and high magnetic field

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Despite the deep structural and physical similarities with the wide family of Bi- and Tl- based high-$`T_\mathrm{c}`$ compounds, the layered cuprate superconductor Bi<sub>2</sub>Sr<sub>2</sub>CuO<sub>6</sub> (Bi-2201) has a relatively low critical temperature (typically less than 13 K). On the other hand, this is accompanied by a value of the upper critical field $`B_{\mathrm{c2}}`$ which lies within the experimentally accessible range, thus allowing the investigation of the whole $`BT`$ phase diagram. Nevertheless, difficulties in growing high-quality single crystals have made this material much less studied than the other cuprates. In this work we present the results of irreversible magnetization measurements, carried out up to the applied magnetic field $`B_\mathrm{a}=28`$ T and down to $`T=60`$ mK on a Bi-2201 single crystal. The goal of this work is to extract the irreversibility line $`B_{\mathrm{irr}}(T)`$ and deduce what is the most suitable model to interpret its behavior, especially in view of the high anisotropy of the material and the influence of flux motion in the resistive transitions in magnetic field.

## 2 EXPERIMENT

The investigated sample is a high-quality Bi<sub>2+x</sub>Sr<sub>2-(x+y)</sub>Cu<sub>1+y</sub>O<sub>6±δ</sub> single crystal of approximate size $`1100\times 700\times 10`$ $`\mu `$m<sup>3</sup>, intrinsically overdoped because of the Bi excess localized on the Sr positions; accordingly, we found a critical temperature $`T_\mathrm{c}4`$ K. The magnetization was detected by means of a very sensitive capacitive torquemeter, installed into the mixing chamber of a dilution refrigerator. The plane of the torquemeter was tilted in order to have an angle $`\theta =30^{}`$ between the $`c`$-axis of the sample and the direction of the applied magnetic field. The torque loops $`\tau (B)`$ (inset of Fig. 1) were recorded during two independent sets of experiments, sweeping the field at the rates $`\mathrm{d}B_\mathrm{a}/\mathrm{d}t=10.8`$ mT/s and $`\mathrm{d}B_\mathrm{a}/\mathrm{d}t=15`$ mT/s, respectively. The magnetization loops $`M(B)`$ can be obtained from the relationship $`M=\tau /(B_\mathrm{a}\mathrm{sin}\theta )`$. Calling $`B_{\mathrm{irr}}^{(\mathrm{a})}`$ the applied field corresponding to the vanishing of the irreversible torque, the actual irreversibility field $`B_{\mathrm{irr}}`$ that would be obtained for $`𝐁_\mathrm{a}𝐜`$ is given by $`B_{\mathrm{irr}}=B_{\mathrm{irr}}^{(\mathrm{a})}\mathrm{cos}\theta `$; this is due to the high anisotropy of Bi-2201, implying that only the field orthogonal to the $`ab`$-planes is effective.

## 3 DISCUSSION

The irreversibility line $`B_{\mathrm{irr}}(T)`$ obtained in this way is shown in Fig. 1: qualitatively, it is very similar to the resistive upper critical field recently obtained with crystals very similar to ours , provided that the criterion $`\rho /\rho _\mathrm{n}=0.1`$ (i.e. the ”foot” of the resistive transition) is chosen. This confirms that, in very anisotropic superconductors, there is a wide area of the $`BT`$ phase diagram where the resistive transition is influenced by flux motion. On the other hand, this $`B_{\mathrm{irr}}(T)`$ can not be interpreted in a simple depinning or flux creep picture, since its curvature does not correspond to a law $`(1T/T_\mathrm{c})^n`$ with $`n2`$. Here we show that the flux motion above $`B_{\mathrm{irr}}`$ takes place as a consequence of the melting of a 3D-anisotropic flux lattice, as demonstrated by the very good fit (solid line in Fig. 1) provided by the analytical form of the 3D-melting line $`B_\mathrm{m}(T)`$ as calculated from the Lindemann criterion :

$$B_\mathrm{m}(T)=B_{\mathrm{c2}}(0)\frac{4\vartheta ^2}{\left(1+\sqrt{1+4\vartheta T_\mathrm{s}/T}\right)^2}$$
(1)   
where $`\vartheta =c_\mathrm{L}^2\sqrt{\beta _\mathrm{m}/Gi}(T_\mathrm{c}/T1)`$, $`T_\mathrm{s}=T_\mathrm{c}c_\mathrm{L}^2\sqrt{\beta _\mathrm{m}/Gi}`$, $`c_\mathrm{L}`$ is the Lindemann number, $`Gi=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{\gamma k_\mathrm{B}T_\mathrm{c}}{(4\pi /\mu _0)B_\mathrm{c}^2(0)\xi _{ab}^3(0)}\right)^2`$ is the Ginzburg number, $`\gamma =\sqrt{m_c/m_{ab}}`$ is the mass anisotropy, $`\kappa =\lambda _{ab}(0)/\xi _{ab}(0)`$ and $`\beta _\mathrm{m}5.6`$. With parameters appropriate for Bi-2201, the fit to Eq. (1) yields the very reasonable estimate of $`c_\mathrm{L}=0.13`$, very close to the value $`c_\mathrm{L}=0.14`$ predicted for 3D vortex lattice melting in high magnetic field . It is interesting to observe that Eq. (1) is obtained using a linear extrapolation of $`B_{\mathrm{c2}}`$ down to $`T=0`$, and here it provides a good fit down to $`T/T_\mathrm{c}0.01`$: a fully linear behavior of $`B_{\mathrm{c2}}(T)`$ is indeed found in Bi-2201  taking the saturation points of the magnetoresistive transitions.   
The high anisotropy of Bi-2201 might suggest that a more realistic picture for the vortex system is a stack of weakly coupled 2D pancake vortices . Instead, our data do not agree neither qualitatively nor quantitatively to the predicted existence of a 2D-3D crossover field $`B_{\mathrm{cr}}`$ and a field-independent melting temperature $`T_\mathrm{m}^{2\mathrm{D}}`$ in the $`BT`$ phase diagram; also the almost identical shape of the torque loops at different temperatures (inset of Fig. 1) suggests the existence of only one pinning mechanism. We can also rule out a possible quantum melting of the vortex lattice at low temperatures , since we don’t find any low-$`T`$ linear features in $`B_{\mathrm{irr}}(T)`$.   
In conclusion, we can interpret the irreversibility line of overdoped Bi<sub>2+x</sub>Sr<sub>2-(x+y)</sub>Cu<sub>1+y</sub>O<sub>6±δ</sub> as the signature of 3D-anisotropic vortex lattice melting down to $`T/T_\mathrm{c}0.01`$.