641 research outputs found
Perfect separation of intraband and interband excitations in PdCoO
The temperature dependence of the optical properties of the delafossite
PdCoO has been measured in the a-b planes over a wide frequency range. The
optical conductivity due to the free-carrier (intraband) response falls well
below the interband transitions, allowing the plasma frequency to be determined
from the -sum rule. Drude-Lorentz fits to the complex optical conductivity
yield estimates for the free-carrier plasma frequency and scattering rate. The
in-plane plasma frequency has also been calculated using density functional
theory. The experimentally-determined and calculated values for the plasma
frequencies are all in good agreement; however, at low temperature the
optically-determined scattering rate is much larger than the estimate for the
transport scattering rate, indicating a strong frequency-dependent
renormalization of the optical scattering rate. In addition to the expected
in-plane infrared-active modes, two very strong features are observed that are
attributed to the coupling of the in-plane carriers to the out-of-plane
longitudinal optic modes.Comment: 7 pages with five figures and three tables; 4 pages of supplementary
materia
On the optical conductivity of Electron-Doped Cuprates I: Mott Physics
The doping and temperature dependent conductivity of electron-doped cuprates
is analysed. The variation of kinetic energy with doping is shown to imply that
the materials are approximately as strongly correlated as the hole-doped
materials. The optical spectrum is fit to a quasiparticle scattering model;
while the model fits the optical data well, gross inconsistencies with
photoemission data are found, implying the presence of a large, strongly doping
dependent Landau parameter
Optical conductivity of nodal metals
Fermi liquid theory is remarkably successful in describing the transport and
optical properties of metals; at frequencies higher than the scattering rate,
the optical conductivity adopts the well-known power law behavior
. We have observed an unusual non-Fermi
liquid response in the ground
states of several cuprate and iron-based materials which undergo electronic or
magnetic phase transitions resulting in dramatically reduced or nodal Fermi
surfaces. The identification of an inverse (or fractional) power-law behavior
in the residual optical conductivity now permits the removal of this
contribution, revealing the direct transitions across the gap and allowing the
nature of the electron-boson coupling to be probed. The non-Fermi liquid
behavior in these systems may be the result of a common Fermi surface topology
of Dirac cone-like features in the electronic dispersion.Comment: 8 pages including supplemental informatio
Phonon anomaly in BaFe2As2
The detailed optical properties of BaFe2As2 have been determined over a wide
frequency range above and below the structural and magnetic transition at T_N =
138 K. A prominent in-plane infrared-active mode is observed at 253 cm^{-1}
(31.4 meV) at 295 K. The frequency of this vibration shifts discontinuously at
T_N; for T < T_N the frequency of this mode displays almost no temperature
dependence, yet it nearly doubles in intensity. This anomalous behavior appears
to be a consequence of orbital ordering in the Fe-As layers.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures and one table (minor revisions
Scaling of the superfluid density in high-temperature superconductors
A scaling relation \rho_s \simeq 35\sigma_{dc}T_c has been observed in the
copper-oxide superconductors, where \rho_s is the strength of the
superconducting condensate, T_c is the critical temperature, and \sigma_{dc} is
the normal-state dc conductivity close to T_c. This scaling relation is
examined within the context of a clean and dirty-limit BCS superconductor.
These limits are well established for an isotropic BCS gap 2\Delta and a
normal-state scattering rate 1/\tau; in the clean limit 1/\tau \ll 2\Delta, and
in the dirty limit 1/\tau > 2\Delta. The dirty limit may also be defined
operationally as the regime where \rho_s varies with 1/\tau. It is shown that
the scaling relation \rho_s \propto \sigma_{dc}T_c is the hallmark of a BCS
system in the dirty-limit. While the gap in the copper-oxide superconductors is
considered to be d-wave with nodes and a gap maximum \Delta_0, if 1/\tau >
2\Delta_0 then the dirty-limit case is preserved. The scaling relation implies
that the copper-oxide superconductors are likely to be in the dirty limit, and
that as a result the energy scale associated with the formation of the
condensate is scaling linearly with T_c. The a-b planes and the c axis also
follow the same scaling relation. It is observed that the scaling behavior for
the dirty limit and the Josephson effect (assuming a BCS formalism) are
essentially identical, suggesting that in some regime these two effects may be
viewed as equivalent. This raises the possibility that electronic
inhomogeneities in the copper-oxygen planes may play an important role in the
nature of the superconductivity in the copper-oxide materials.Comment: 8 pages with 5 figures and 1 tabl
Sum rules and energy scales in the high-temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3O6+x
The Ferrell-Glover-Tinkham (FGT) sum rule has been applied to the temperature
dependence of the in-plane optical conductivity of optimally-doped
YBa_2Cu_3O_{6.95} and underdoped YBa_2Cu_3O_{6.60}. Within the accuracy of the
experiment, the sum rule is obeyed in both materials. However, the energy scale
\omega_c required to recover the full strength of the superfluid \rho_s in the
two materials is dramatically different; \omega_c \simeq 800 cm^{-1} in the
optimally doped system (close to twice the maximum of the superconducting gap,
2\Delta_0), but \omega_c \gtrsim 5000 cm^{-1} in the underdoped system. In both
materials, the normal-state scattering rate close to the critical temperature
is small, \Gamma < 2\Delta_0, so that the materials are not in the dirty limit
and the relevant energy scale for \rho_s in a BCS material should be twice the
energy gap. The FGT sum rule in the optimally-doped material suggests that the
majority of the spectral weight of the condensate comes from energies below
2\Delta_0, which is consistent with a BCS material in which the condensate
originates from a Fermi liquid normal state. In the underdoped material the
larger energy scale may be a result of the non-Fermi liquid nature of the
normal state. The dramatically different energy scales suggest that the nature
of the normal state creates specific conditions for observing the different
aspects of what is presumably a central mechanism for superconductivity in
these materials.Comment: RevTeX 4 file, 9 pages with 7 embedded eps figure
Infrared study of valence transition compound YbInCu4 using cleaved surfaces
Optical reflectivity R(w) of YbInCu4 single crystals has been measured across
its first-order valence transition at T_v ~ 42 K, using both polished and
cleaved surfaces. R(w) measured on cleaved surfaces Rc(w) was found much lower
than that on polished surface Rp(w) over the entire infrared region. Upon
cooling through T_v, Rc(w) showed a rapid change over a temperature range of
less than 2 K, and showed only minor changes with further cooling. In contrast,
Rp(w) showed much more gradual and continuous changes across T_v, similarly to
previously reported data on polished surfaces. The present result on cleaved
surfaces demonstrates that the microscopic electronic structures of YbInCu4
observed with infrared spectroscopy indeed undergo a sudden change upon the
valence transition. The gradual temperature-evolution of Rp(w) is most likely
due to the compositional and/or Yb-In site disorders caused by polishing.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Fig.1(a) correcte
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