Field-induced quantum critical route to a Fermi liquid in high-temperature superconductors

Abstract

In high transition temperature (T_c) superconductivity, charge doping is a natural tuning parameter that takes copper oxides from the antiferromagnet to the superconducting region. In the metallic state above T_c the standard Landau's Fermi-liquid theory of metals as typified by the temperature squared (T^2) dependence of resistivity appears to break down. Whether the origin of the non-Fermi-liquid behavior is related to physics specific to the cuprates is a fundamental question still under debate. We uncover a new transformation from the non-Fermi- to a standard Fermi-liquid state driven not by doping but by magnetic field in the overdoped high-T_c superconductor Tl_2Ba_2CuO_{6+x}. From the c-axis resistivity measured up to 45 T, we show that the Fermi-liquid features appear above a sufficiently high field which decreases linearly with temperature and lands at a quantum critical point near the superconductivity's upper critical field -- with the Fermi-liquid coefficient of the T^2 dependence showing a power-law diverging behavior on the approach to the critical point. This field-induced quantum criticality bears a striking resemblance to that in quasi-two dimensional heavy-Fermion superconductors, suggesting a common underlying spin-related physics in these superconductors with strong electron correlations.