Comparison of the transport mechanism in underdoped high-temperature superconductors and in spin ladders

Recently, the normal state resistivity of high-temperature superconductors (HTSC) (in particular in La2-xSrxCuO4 single crystals) has been studied ext ensively in the region below T-c by suppressing the superconducting state i n high magnetic fields [Y. Ando, G.S. Boebinger, A. Passnet, Phys. Rev. Let t. 75, 1995, pp. 4661-4665.]. In the present work, we report on the normal state resistance of underdoped La2-xCuO4 thin films under epitaxial strain [J.P. Locquet, J. Ferret, J. Fompeyrine, E. Machler, J.W. See, G. Van Tende loo, Nature 394, 1998, pp. 453-456.], measured far below T-c by applying pu lsed fields up to 60 T [F. Herlach, L. Van Bockstal, R. Bogaerts, I. Decker s, G. Heremans, L. Li, G. Pitsi, J. Vanacken, A. Van Esch, Physica B 201, 1 994, p. 542.]. We will compare the transport measurements on these HTSCs wi th transport data reported for the Sr2.5Ca11.5Cu24O41 spin ladder compound [T. Nagata, M. Uehara, J. Goto, N. Komiya, J. Akimitsu, N. Motoyama, H. Eis aki, S. Uchida, H. Takahashi, N. Nakanishe, N. Mori, Physica C 282-287, 199 7, pp. 153-156.]. This comparison leads to an interpretation of the data in terms of the recently proposed 1D quantum transport model and the charge-s tripe models [V.V. Moshchalkov, Solid State Commun. 86, 1993, p. 715; V.V. Moshchalkov, Cond-Mat/9803281; V.V. Moshchalkov, L. Trappeniers, J. Vanacke n, Europhys. Lett. 46, 1999, pp. 75-81; J. Vanacken, L. Trappeniers, J. Fer ret, J.-P. Locquet, V.V. Moshchalkov, Y. Bruynseraede, unpublished.]. (C) 2 000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.