Extremely overdoped superconducting cuprates via high pressure oxygenation methods

Funding Information: Funding: Funding for this work was provided by: Slovenian Research Agency core funding P1-0040 (S.D.C.); National Science Foundation grant no. 1928874 (S.D.C.); Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences contract DEAC02-76SF00515 (T.H.G., S.D.C.; Ministry of Science and Technology of China (C.-Q.J.); Natural Science Foundation of China (C.-Q.J), Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences DEAC02-76SF00515 (T.H.G., S.D.C.). Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Within the cuprate constellation, one fixed star has been the superconducting dome in the quantum phase diagram of transition temperature vs. the excess charge on the Cu in the CuO2-planes, p, resulting from O-doping or cation substitution. However, a more extensive search of the literature shows that the loss of the superconductivity in favor of a normal Fermi liquid on the overdoped side should not be assumed. Many experimental results from cuprates prepared by high-pressure oxygenation show Tc converging to a fixed value or continuing to slowly increase past the upper limit of the dome of p = 0.26–0.27, up to the maximum amounts of excess oxygen corresponding to p values of 0.3 to > 0.6. These reports have been met with disinterest or disregard. Our review shows that dome-breaking trends for Tc are, in fact, the result of careful, accurate experimental work on a large number of compounds. This behavior most likely mandates a revision of the theoretical basis for high-temperature superconductivity. That excess O atoms located in specific, metastable sites in the crystal, attainable only with extreme O chemical activity under HPO conditions, cause such a radical extension of the superconductivity points to a much more substantial role for the lattice in terms of internal chemistry and bonding.Peer reviewe