Bipolaronic proximity and other unconventional effects in cuprate superconductors

Abstract

There is compelling evidence for a strong electron-phonon interaction (EPI) in cuprate superconductors from the isotope effects on the supercarrier mass, high resolution angle resolved photoemission spectroscopies (ARPES), a number of optical and neutron-scattering measurements in accordance with our prediction of high-temperature superconductivity in polaronic liquids. A number of observations point to the possibility that high-Tc cuprate superconductors may not be conventional Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superconductors, but rather derive from the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of real-space pairs, which are mobile small bipolarons. Here I review the bipolaron theory of unconventional proximity effects, the symmetry and checkerboard modulations of the order parameter and quantum magneto-oscillations discovered recently in cuprates.

16 pages, 5 figures, invited contribution to "Electron Transport in Nanosystems", eds. Janez Bonca and Sergei Kruchinin (Springer 2008), more references and a comment on the recent reinterpretation of the isotope effects are added

References in corpus (4)

• Quantum oscillations and the Fermi surface in an underdoped high-Tc superconductor
• Bose-Einstein condensation of strongly correlated electrons and phonons in cuprate superconductors
• Theory of giant and nil proximity effects in cuprate semiconductors
• Hall-Lorenz number paradox in cuprate superconductors