Ultrafast carrier localisation in the pseudogap state of cuprate superconductors from coherent quench experiments

Abstract

A pseudogap (PG) was introduced by Mott to describe a state of matter which has a minimum in the density of states at the Fermi level, deep enough for states to become localized. It can arise either from Coulomb repulsion between electrons, or due to an incipient charge or spin order, or a combination of the two. These states are rapidly fluctuating in time with random phase, so they are hard to observe experimentally. Here we present the first coherent quench measurements of the dynamical transition to the pseudogap state in the prototype high temperature superconductor Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_{8+\delta }$, revealing a marked absence of incipient collective ordering beyond a few coherence lengths on short timescales at any level of doping. Instead we find evidence for sub-picosecond carrier localization favouring a picture of pairing resulting from the competing Coulomb interaction and strain, enhanced by a Fermi surface instability.

References in corpus (13)

• Inelastic Light Scattering From Correlated Electrons
• How Cooper pairs vanish approaching the Mott insulator in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d
• From a single-band metal to a high-temperature superconductor via two thermal phase transitions (Supporting Material)
• From a single-band metal to a high-temperature superconductor via two thermal phase transitions
• Appearance of fluctuating stripes at the onset of the pseudogap in the high-Tc Superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x
• Controlled vaporization of the superconducting condensate in cuprate superconductors sheds light on the pairing boson
• Direct observation of the coexistence of pseudogap and superconducting quasi-particles in Bi2212 by time-resolved optical spectroscopy
• Electron-phonon coupling and charge gap in spin-density-wave iron-pnictides from quasiparticle relaxation dynamics
• Time- and Momentum-resolved Gap Dynamics in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta
• Photo-enhanced antinodal conductivity in the pseudogap state of high Tc cuprates
• New insights into the phase diagram of the copper oxide superconductors from electronic Raman scattering
• Separating pairing from quantum phase coherence dynamics above the superconducting transition by femtosecond spectroscopy
• Self-organization of charged particles on a 2D lattice subject to anisotropic Jahn-Teller-type interaction and 3D Coulomb repulsion

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Multi-Band Superconductivity and the Steep Band -- Flat Band Scenario
• Disorder-sensitive pump-probe measurements on Nd${}_{1.83}$Ce${}_{0.17}$CuO${}_{4\pm \delta }$ films
• Dynamics of the superconducting order parameter through ultrafast normal-to-superconducting phase transition in Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_{8+\delta }$ from multi-pulse polarization-resolved transient optical reflectivity