Recent experiments introducing controlled disorder into optimally doped cuprate superconductors by both electron irradiation and chemical substitution have found unusual behavior in the rate of suppression of the critical temperature $T_c$ vs increase in residual resistivity. We show here that the unexpected discovery that the rate of $T_c$ suppression vs resistivity is stronger for out of plane than for in plane impurities may be explained by consistent calculation of both $T_c$ and resistivity if the potential scattering is assumed to be nearly forward in nature. For realistic models of impurity potentials, we further show that significant deviations from the universal Abrikosov-Gor’kov $T_c$ suppression behavior may be expected for out of plane impurities.

• Received 23 March 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.76.054516