No Arabic abstract
A number of experiments have evidenced signatures of enhanced superconducting correlations after photoexcitation. Initially, these experiments were interpreted as resulting from quasi-static changes in the Hamiltonian parameters, for example, due to lattice deformations or melting of competing phases. Yet, several recent observations indicate that these conjectures are either incorrect or do not capture all the observed phenomena, which include reflectivity exceeding unity, large shifts of Josephson plasmon edges, and appearance of new peaks in terahertz reflectivity. These observations can be explained from the perspective of a Floquet theory involving a periodic drive of system parameters, but the origin of the underlying oscillations remains unclear. In this paper, we demonstrate that following incoherent photoexcitation, long-lived oscillations are generally expected in superconductors with low-energy Josephson plasmons, such as in cuprates or fullerene superconductor K$_3$C$_{60}$. These oscillations arise from the parametric generation of plasmon pairs due to pump-induced perturbation of the superconducting order parameter. We show that this bi-plasmon response can persist even above the transition temperature as long as strong superconducting fluctuations are present. Our analysis offers a robust framework to understand light-induced superconducting behavior, and the predicted bi-plasmon oscillations can be directly detected using available experimental techniques.
Unconventional superconductivity often emerges at the border of long-range magnetic orders. Understanding the low-energy charge dynamics may provide crucial information on the formation of superconductivity. Here we report the unpolarized/polarized optical conductivity study of high quality MnP single crystals at ambient pressure. Our data reveal two types of charge carriers with very different lifetimes. In combination with the first-principles calculations, we show that the short-lifetime carriers have flat Fermi sheets which become gapped in the helimagnetic phase, causing a dramatic change in the low-frequency optical spectra, while the long-lifetime carriers are anisotropic three-dimensional like which are little affected by the magnetic transitions and provide major contributions to the transport properties. This orbital-dependent charge dynamics originates from the special crystal structure of MnP and may have an influence on the unconventional superconductivity and its interplay with helimagnetism at high pressures.
The quest to create superconductors with higher transition temperatures is as old as superconductivity itself. One strategy, popular after the realization that (conventional) superconductivity is mediated by phonons, is to chemically combine different elements within the crystalline unit cell to maximize the electron-phonon coupling. This led to the discovery of NbTi and Nb3Sn, to name just the most technologically relevant examples. Here, we propose a radically different approach to transform a `pristine material into a better (meta-) superconductor by making use of modern fabrication techniques: designing and engineering the electronic properties of thin films via periodic patterning on the nanoscale. We present a model calculation to explore the key effects of different supercells that could be fabricated using nanofabrication or deliberate lattice mismatch, and demonstrate that specific pattern will enhance the coupling and the transition temperature. We also discuss how numerical methods could predict the correct design parameters to improve superconductivity in materials including Al, NbTi, and MgB2
The influence of a uniform external magnetic field on the dynamical spin response of cuprate superconductors in the superconducting state is studied based on the kinetic energy driven superconducting mechanism. It is shown that the magnetic scattering around low and intermediate energies is dramatically changed with a modest external magnetic field. With increasing the external magnetic field, although the incommensurate magnetic scattering from both low and high energies is rather robust, the commensurate magnetic resonance scattering peak is broadened. The part of the spin excitation dispersion seems to be an hourglass-like dispersion, which breaks down at the heavily low energy regime. The theory also predicts that the commensurate resonance scattering at zero external magnetic field is induced into the incommensurate resonance scattering by applying an external magnetic field large enough.
Quasiparticle dynamics of FeSe single crystals revealed by dual-color transient reflectivity measurements ({Delta}R/R) provides unprecedented information on Fe-based superconductors. The amplitude of fast component in {Delta}R/R clearly tells a competing scenario between spin fluctuations and superconductivity. Together with the transport measurements, the relaxation time analysis further exhibits anomalous changes at 90 K and 230 K. The former manifests a structure phase transition as well as the associated phonon softening. The latter suggests a previously overlooked phase transition or crossover in FeSe. The electron-phonon coupling constant {lambda} is found to be 0.16, identical to the value of theoretical calculations. Such a small {lambda} demonstrates an unconventional origin of superconductivity in FeSe.
We have performed high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy on FeSe superconductor (Tc ~ 8 K), which exhibits a tetragonal-to-orthorhombic structural transition at Ts ~ 90 K. At low temperature we found splitting of the energy bands as large as 50 meV at the M point in the Brillouin zone, likely caused by the formation of electronically driven nematic states. This band splitting persists up to T ~ 110 K, slightly above Ts, suggesting that the structural transition is triggered by the electronic nematicity. We have also revealed that at low temperature the band splitting gives rise to a van Hove singularity within 5 meV of the Fermi energy. The present result strongly suggests that this unusual electronic state is responsible for the unconventional superconductivity in FeSe.