Infrared properties of exotic superconductors

The infrared spectra of the non-traditional superconductors share certain common features. The lack of a gap signature at $2\Delta$ and the residual conductivity are the consequence of a d-wave order parameter. The high $T_c$ materials, the organic conductors and the heavy Fermion materials have a strong mid-infrared absorption band which can be interpreted as strong coupling of the carriers to electronic degrees of freedom which leads to a breakdown of the Fermi liquid picture. The cuprates and the organic charge transfer salts are unique in possessing an intrinsic low dimensionality. The charge transport normal to the highly conducting direction is incoherent down to the lowest temperatures and frequencies.Comment: 10 pages 11 figures, From the proceedings of the First Euroconference on Anomalous Complex Superconductors, Heraklion, Crete. Sept 1998, to be published in Physica

Experimental observation of nonlinear Thomson scattering

A century ago, J. J. Thomson showed that the scattering of low-intensity light by electrons was a linear process (i.e., the scattered light frequency was identical to that of the incident light) and that light's magnetic field played no role. Today, with the recent invention of ultra-high-peak-power lasers it is now possible to create a sufficient photon density to study Thomson scattering in the relativistic regime. With increasing light intensity, electrons quiver during the scattering process with increasing velocity, approaching the speed of light when the laser intensity approaches 10^18 W/cm^2. In this limit, the effect of light's magnetic field on electron motion should become comparable to that of its electric field, and the electron mass should increase because of the relativistic correction. Consequently, electrons in such high fields are predicted to quiver nonlinearly, moving in figure-eight patterns, rather than in straight lines, and thus to radiate photons at harmonics of the frequency of the incident laser light, with each harmonic having its own unique angular distribution. In this letter, we report the first ever direct experimental confirmation of these predictions, a topic that has previously been referred to as nonlinear Thomson scattering. Extension of these results to coherent relativistic harmonic generation may eventually lead to novel table-top x-ray sources.Comment: including 4 figure

Probing superconducting phase fluctuations from the current noise spectrum of pseudogaped metal-superconductor tunnel junctions

We study the current noise spectra of a tunnel junction of a metal with strong pairing phase fluctuation and a superconductor. It is shown that there is a characteristic peak in the noise spectrum at the intrinsic Josephson frequency $\omega_J=2eV$ when $\omega_J$ is smaller than the pairing gap but larger than the pairing scattering rate. In the presence of an AC voltage, the tunnelling current noise shows a series of characteristic peaks with increasing DC voltage. Experimental observation of these peaks will give direct evidence of the pair fluctuation in the normal state of high-$T_c$ superconductors and from the half width of the peaks the pair decay rate can be estimated.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

An SU(2) Formulation of the t-J model: Application to Underdoped Cuprates

We develop a slave-boson theory for the t-J model at finite doping which respect a SU(2) symmetry -- a symmetry previously known to be important at half filling. The mean field phase diagram is found to be consistent with the phases observed in the cuprate superconductors, which contains d-wave superconductor, spin gap, strange metal, and Fermi liquid phases. The spin gap phase is best understood as the staggered flux phase, which is nevertheless translationally invariant for physical quantities. The physical electron spectral function shows small Fermi segments at low doping which continuously evolve into the large Fermi surface at high doping concentrations. The close relation between the SU(2) and the U(1) slave-boson theory is discussed. The low energy effective theory for the low lying fluctuations is derived, and new lying modes (which were over looked in the U(1) theory) are identified.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures, RevTe