Evaluation of CuO2 plane hole doping in YBa2Cu3O6+x single crystals

Abstract

The electron hole concentration p in the CuO2 planes of YBa2Cu3O6+x (YBCO) has been evaluated using the unit cell length in the c-direction together with a simple estimation for p in the chain oxygen ordered phases. The empirical relationship between p and c obtained allows calculation of p from the c-axis lattice parameter for the entire doping range of YBCO. It is also suggested that the empirical parabola describing the relationship between Tc and p in La2-dSrdCuO4 is reasonably correct for YBCO except for the region around p =1/8, where the Tc of YBCO is suppressed by as much as 17 K. A correction of the parabola for the p = 1/8 effect is presented.