On the quantitative determination of hole-concentration in high-temperature cuprate superconductors

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We compared four hole-scales that have been used to determine the hole-concentration in high-temperature cuprate superconductors. We show that the hole-scale, Ppl-scale, based on the thermoelectric power [T. Honma et al., Phys. Rev. B70, (2004) 214517.] is quantitatively consistent with spectroscopic probes for many different cuprate materials, while the other hole-scales, based on a well-known dome-shaped Tc-curve [M. R. Presland et al., Physica C176, 95 (1991)], the c-axis lattice parameter [R. Liang et al., Phys. Rev. B73, (2006) 180505(R).], and Hall coefficient [Y. Ando et al., Phys. Rev. B61, (2000) 14956(R).], are not. We show that the quantitatively different hole-scales resulted in opposite conclusion of the same experimental observations. It can also lead to different interpretations of the electronic phase diagram when comparing different physical properties in different high-Tc systems. We suggest that the Ppl-scale is the correct universal scale that works for all high-Tc cuprates and it should be used for all quantitative doping dependence studies of cuprates.