Despite years of intense study, the structural and bonding properties of the cuprate high temperature superconductors are not yet fully understood. In recent years pressure has been used as a tuning parameter to probe the unusual properties of these materials, particularly, the anomalous changes in Tc observed in the bismuth-based cuprates. We report the effects of quasi-hydrostatic pressures on the properties of bismuth-based high-Tc cuprate superconductors - Bi2Sr2Can-1CunO2n+4+δ (n=1,2,3) – using diamond anvil cells. Previous reports hint at possible correlations between structural transitions and a pressure-induced rise in Tc, indicating a change in oxygen coordination under pressure might be responsible for the drastic rise. We report measurements that indicate many of these structural changes are particularly susceptible to the degree of hydrostaticity within the compression environment, and will not occur when compressed in a softer media. While we observe no structural transitions, changes in compression mechanisms were observed in the n=1,2 compounds with a particularly prominent stiffening present in the n=2 member. We compare structural data in different compression environments to Tc data and find no correlation between the two, i.e., Tc is observed to rise in both hydrostatic and non-hydrostatic compression environments.

Pressure as a probe of structural and transport properties of Bi2Sr2Can-1CunO2n+4+δ

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