Cuprate superconductors exhibit many features, but the ultimate question is why the critical temperature ([Formula: see text]) is so high. The fundamental dichotomy is between the weak-pairing, Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) scenario, and Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC) of strongly-bound pairs. While for underdoped cuprates it is hotly debated which of these pictures is appropriate, it is commonly believed that on the overdoped side strongly-correlated fermion physics evolves smoothly into the conventional BCS behavior. Here, we test this dogma by studying the dependence of key superconducting parameters on doping, temperature, and external fields, in thousands of cuprate samples. The findings do not conform to BCS predictions anywhere in the phase diagram.
Metastable Bose-Einstein condensation in a strongly correlated optical lattice
