Charge trapping and super-Poissonian noise centres in a cuprate superconductor

The electronic properties of cuprate high-temperature superconductors in their normal state are highly two-dimensional: transport along the crystal planes is perfectly metallic, but is insulating along the perpendicular ‘c-axis’ direction. The ratio of the in-plane to the perpendicular resistance can exceed 10 ⁴ (refs ^1–4 ). This anisotropy was identified as one of the mysteries of the cuprates early on ^5,6 , and although widely different proposals exist for its microscopic origin ^7–9 , there is little empirical information on the microscopic scale. Here, we elucidate the properties of the insulating layers with a newly developed scanning noise spectroscopy technique that can spatially map the current and its time-resolved fluctuations. We discover atomic-scale noise centres that exhibit megahertz current fluctuations 40 times the expectation from Poissonian noise, more than what has been observed in mesoscopic systems ¹⁰ . Such behaviour can happen only in highly polarizable insulators and represents strong evidence for trapping of charge in the charge reservoir layers. Our measurements suggest a picture of metallic layers separated by polarizable insulators within a three-dimensional superconducting state.