2,282 research outputs found
Theory of Thermal Conductivity in YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-\delta}
We calculate the electronic thermal conductivity in a d-wave superconductor,
including both the effect of impurity scattering and inelastic scattering by
antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations. We analyze existing experiments,
particularly with regard to the question of the relative importance of
electronic and phononic contributions to the heat current, and to the influence
of disorder on low-temperature properties. We find that phonons dominate heat
transport near T_c, but that electrons are responsible for most of the peak
observed in clean samples, in agreement with a recent analysis of Krishana et
al. In agreement with recent data on YBa_2(Cu_1-xZn_x)_3O_7-\delta the peak
position is found to vary nonmonotonically with disorder.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. Let
Microwave Conductivity due to Impurity Scattering in a d-wave Superconductor
The self-consistent t-matrix approximation for impurity scattering in
unconventional superconductors is used to interpret recent measurements of the
temperature and frequency dependence of the microwave conductivity of YBCO
crystals below 20K. In this theory, the conductivity is expressed in terms of a
fequency dependent single particle self-energy, determined by the impurity
scattering phase shift which is small for weak (Born) scattering and approaches
for unitary scattering. Inverting this process, microwave
conductivity data are used to extract an effective single-particle self-energy
and obtain insight into the nature of the operative scattering processes. It is
found that the effective self-energy is well approximated by a constant plus a
linear term in frequency with a small positive slope for thermal quasiparticle
energies below 20K. Possible physical origins of this form of self-energy are
discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Universal zero-frequency Raman slope in a d-wave superconductor
It is known that for an unconventional superconductor with nodes in the gap,
the in-plane microwave or dc conductivity saturates at low temperatures to a
universal value independent of the impurity concentration. We demonstrate that
a similar feature can be accessed using channel-dependent Raman scattering. It
is found that, for a -wave superconductor, the slope of
low-temperature Raman intensity at zero frequency is universal in the
and channels, but not in the channel. Moreover, as opposed to
the microwave conductivity, universal Raman slopes are sensitive not only to
the existence of a node, but also to different pairing states and should allow
one to distinguish between such pairing states.Comment: 5 page
Anisotropic Optical Conductivity of Nd2-xCexCuO4 Thin Films
Opticcal conductivity spectra of Nd2-xCexCuO4 thin films,
measured by the reflectance-transmittance method (R-T method) which has been
proposed to investigate far-infrared spectroscopy, are investigated based on
the anisotropic pairing model. Precise measurements of the frequency-dependent
conductivity enable us to examine quantitatively the nature of the
superconducting gap through infrared properties in the electron-doped high-Tc
superconductors. We show that the behavior of optical conductivity
is consistent with the anisotropic superconducting gap and is well explained by
the formula for d-wave pairing in the low-energy regime of the far-infrared
region. Our results suggest that the electron-doped cuprate superconductors
Nd2-xCexCuO4 have nodes in the superconducting gap.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
- …