High-temperature superconductivity 

Members of the Group

Review Articles

Pseudogap models

Low temperature ``phase only'' effective action for d-wave superconductors

Vortex state in d-wave superconductors

Impurities in d-wave and s-wave superconductors

Grants

Teaching

International Collaboration

    HTSC phase diagram

    Contact address
    Prof. V.M. Loktev 
    Bogolyubov Institute for Theoretical Physics 
    Metrologichna Str. 14-b 
    03143 Kiev 
    Ukraine 

  • Office: Room 341
  • Phone: +38-044-266 91 39
  • Fax: +38-044-266 59 98
  • Email: [email protected]

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MEMBERS OF THE GROUP

REVIEW ARTICLES 

PSEUDOGAP MODELS
    The discovery of high temperature superconductors (HTSC) revealed new problems in solid state physics in general and in the theory of superconductivity in particular. A combination of factors, including unusual magnetic and electronic properties, a lowered dimensionality, closeness to the metal-insulator transition and relatively low carrier densities, makes the construction of an appropriate theory both difficult and far from resolved. It appears that the important features of HTSC which are based on their low dimensionality and low carrier density can be studied using the simplest pairing Hamiltonians such as the 2D and quasi-2D attractive Hubbard models. Using the modulus-phase variables appropriate to these models (the importance of these variables was pointed out in the quantum field theory for the Gross-Neveu model) (see e.g. cond-mat/9709034 , JETP 88 (1999) 685) the presence of a new nonsuperconducting, but gapped phase in 2D and quasi-2D models of superconductors with relatively small carrier density was proved. In particular, the analytic expressions for Green's functions (see JETP Letters 69 (1999) 141; cond-mat/9811207, JETP 90 (2000) 993 and cond-mat/0007271) and other observable quantities were derived. One can attempt to relate this phase to the pseudogap phenomena (or at least part of them) observed in HTSC. The developed approach may be regarded as the microscopical derivation of the phenomenological theory of Emery and Kivelson, Nature 374 , 434 (1995) which relates the pseudogap phenomena to the fluctuations of the phase of order parameter.
     
     

Low temperature ``phase only'' effective action for d-wave superconductors
    While the mechanism of superconductivity and unusual nature of the normal state in high-temperature superconductors (HTSC) are not yet understood, there is a consensus that the zero field superconducting state has a d-wave superconducting energy gap, with nodes along the diagonals of the Brillouin zone.

    Brillouin zone

    The presence of the nodes results in a large compared with conventional s-wave superconductors density of low energy quasiparticle excitations even at the temperatures much smaller than the transition temperature. Although these excitations are reasonably well described by Landau quasiparticles their presence brings in a qualitatively new quasiparticle phenomenology not encountered in conventional superconductors.

    Recently we have derived and compared (cond-mat/0012511, Phys. Rev. B 64 (2001) 134519) finite temperature time-dependent effective actions for the phase of the pairing field, which are appropriate for a 2D electron system with both non-retarded d- and s-wave attraction. As for s-wave pairing the d-wave effective action contains terms with Landau damping, but their structure appears to be different from the s-wave case due to the fact that the Landau damping is determined by the quasiparticle group velocity, vg which for d-wave pairing does not have the same direction as the non-interacting Fermi velocity, vF. We have shown that for d-wave pairing the Landau term has a linear low temperature dependence and in contrast to the s-wave case are important for all finite temperatures.

    We have also investigated the Carlson-Goldman (CG) mode (cond-mat/0109004, Phys. Rev. B 65 (2002) )in two-dimensional clean d-wave superconductors using the effective ``phase only'' action formalism. In conventional s-wave superconductors, it is known that the CG mode is observed as a peak in the structure factor of the pair susceptibility S(O, K) only just below the transition temperature Tc and only in dirty systems. On the other hand, our analytical results imply that in d-wave superconductors the CG mode can exist in clean systems down to the much lower temperatures.
     
     


Vortex state in d-wave superconductors
    Among many aspects of this new physics a major role is played by these low energy excitations in the mixed (or vortex) state. Since all HTSCs are extreme type-II superconductors a huge mixed phase extends from the lower critical field, Hc1 =10 - 100 Gauss to the upper critical field, Hc2 =100 T.
     
     

Impurities in d-wave and s-wave superconductors
    It is well known that a parent state of almost all HTSC compounds is the Mott-Hubbard insulator with the charge-transfer gap. The metal-insulator transition in these compounds is stimulated by the heterovalent doping or by the change in the oxygen content. Both factors lead to the structural disorder as an intrinsic property of these materials. This means that they belong to the family of non-ideal (or impure) crystals. The doped ions play a twofold role:
    1. supply the itinerant carriers in the conduction (valent) band and produce the metallization;
    2. are the centers of localization and scattering which (this follows from classical results of Anderson and Abrikosov and Gor'kov) could suppress superconductivity, especially of d-wave type.
    From the statement made one comes to a conclusion that the single-particle localization processes and superconducting pairing should be treated in a self-consistent way. It is important that in such a case the number of the initial free carriers is equal to the number of scatterers, so HTSC as metallic systems are "bad metals" where kF l ~ 1 (kF is the Fermi-momentum, l is the free path). The corresponding theory was developed (Physica C 272 (1996) 151; cond-mat/0104581, Low Temp. Phys. 27 (2002) 767; Europhys.Lett. (2002) (in press)) and the following results were obtained: The superconductivity is possible between two characteristic concentrations of dopants cmet and csup, where

    cmet = Exp(-pi W /4 Vattr) and csup= (Vattr/VL)2.

    Here W is the bandwidth, V_attr and V_L are the pairing and localization (in Lifshitz model) potentials, respectively. Superconducting gap in these points is:

    D = (c - cmet)1/2 and D = (csup - c)1/2.

    The density of states on the Fermi level is

    N(e) = W e/c2 VL2 ln 2(D/e).

    It is seen that dN(e)/de goes to 0 when e tends to 0. This asymptotic behavior changes all thermodynamic properties at low temperatures.
     
     


GRANTS
    2001-2003
    The research grant of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SCOPES)
     
     

TEACHING

INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION 

S. Sh., 15 March 2002
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