November 6, 2026 at 7:38 PMScience › Physics1 min read

Physicists Link Cuprate Pseudogap to Electron Pairing Up to 70 meV

Shot-noise spectroscopy of a bismuth cuprate revealed that the pseudogap marks the onset of electron pairing rather than competing local order.

Researchers measured local shot-noise spectroscopy in the high-temperature cuprate superconductor Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O₈₊δ to study the nature of the pseudogap phase, according to a report in Science doi.org.

The measurements demonstrated that the pseudogap energy directly coincides with the onset of electron pairing doi.org. The observed energy is spatially heterogeneous across the material and reaches values of up to 70 milli–electron volts doi.org.

These data provide experimental evidence linking the pseudogap to Cooper pair formation and exclude hypotheses attributing it purely to local order doi.org. The findings indicate that the critical temperature in cuprates is limited by phase coherence doi.org.