Optically induced coherent transport far above Tc in underdoped YBa2Cu3O6+δ
By S. Kaiser, C. R. Hunt, D. Nicoletti, W. Hu, I. Gierz, Haiyun Liu, M. Tacon, T. Loew, D. Haug, Bernhard Keimer and 1 more. 2012
200 citations recorded by the source corpus.
We report on a photo-induced transient state of YBa2Cu2O6+x in which transport perpendicular to the Cu-O planes becomes highly coherent. This effect is achieved by excitation with mid-infrared optical pulses, tuned to the resonant frequency of apical oxygen vibrations, which modulate both lattice and electronic properties. Below the superconducting transition temperature Tc, the equilibrium signatures of superconducting interlayer coupling are enhanced. Most strikingly, the optical excitation induces a new reflectivity edge at higher frequency than the equilibrium Josephson plasma resonance, with a concomitant enhancement of the low frequency imaginary conductivity. Above Tc, the incoherent equilibrium conductivity becomes highly coherent, with the appearance of a reflectivity edge and a positive imaginary conductivity that increases with decreasing frequency. These features are observed up to room temperature in YBa2Cu2O6.45 and YBa2Cu2O6.5. The data above Tc can be fitted by hypothesizing that the light re-establishes a transient superconducting state over only a fraction of the solid, with a lifetime of a few picoseconds. Non-superconducting transport could also explain these observations, although one would have to assume transient carrier mobilities near 10^4 cm^2/(V.sec) at 100 K, with a density of charge carriers similar to the below Tc superfluid density. Our results are indicative of highly unconventional non-equilibrium physics and open new prospects for optical control of complex solids.
Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Condensed Matter Physics
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0eda162d8c4629a9cb587f04d5c440b642f144b9
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Citations in the corpus
- Ultrafast optical spectroscopy of strongly correlated materials and high-temperature superconductors: a non-equilibrium approach (2016, background): “[1]Yao,X.,Mizukoshi,T.,Egami,M.andShiohara,Y.,SuperconductivityandcrystalgrowthofYBCOgrownunder1atm oxygenpressure.”
- Giant THz photoconductivity and possible non-equilibrium superconductivity in metallic K3C60 (2015, methodology): “Electronic structure, lattice dynamics, and nonlinear phonon couplings after excitation of the T1u(4) phonon were obtained using density functional theory (DFT) calculations with planewave basis set and projector augmented wave pseudopotentials (VASP software package)35.”
- Colloquium: Nonthermal pathways to ultrafast control in quantum materials (2021, background): “…phase transitions, such as lattice-controlled metal-insulator transitions (Rini et al., 2007), and to lead to states of matter without equilibrium counterparts, including possible light-induced superconductivity (Fausti et al., 2011; Hu et al., 2014; Kaiser et al., 2014b; Mankowsky et al., 2014).”