The structure of the high-energy spin excitations in a high-transition-temperature superconductor

S. M. Hayden (), H. A. Mook, Pengcheng Dai, T. G. Perring and F. Doğan
Additional contact information
S. M. Hayden: University of Bristol
H. A. Mook: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Pengcheng Dai: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
T. G. Perring: ISIS Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
F. Doğan: University of Missouri-Rolla

Nature, 2004, vol. 429, issue 6991, 531-534

Abstract: Abstract In conventional superconductors, lattice vibrations (phonons) mediate the attraction between electrons that is responsible for superconductivity1. The high transition temperatures (high-Tc) of the copper oxide superconductors has led to collective spin excitations being proposed as the mediating excitations in these materials2. The mediating excitations must be strongly coupled to the conduction electrons, have energy greater than the pairing energy, and be present at Tc. The most obvious feature in the magnetic excitations of high-Tc superconductors such as YBa2Cu3O6+x is the so-called ‘resonance’3,4,5,6. Although the resonance may be strongly coupled to the superconductivity3,4,5,6,7,8, it is unlikely to be the main cause, because it has not been found in the La2-x(Ba,Sr)xCuO4 family and is not universally present in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ (ref. 9). Here we use inelastic neutron scattering to characterize possible mediating excitations at higher energies in YBa2Cu3O6.6. We observe a square-shaped continuum of excitations peaked at incommensurate positions. These excitations have energies greater than the superconducting pairing energy, are present at Tc, and have spectral weight far exceeding that of the ‘resonance’. The discovery of similar excitations in La2–xBaxCuO4 (ref. 10) suggests that they are a general property of the copper oxides, and a candidate for mediating the electron pairing.

Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02576 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:429:y:2004:i:6991:d:10.1038_nature02576

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature02576

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().