Gapped collective charge excitations and interlayer hopping in cuprate superconductors

Abstract

We use resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) to probe the propagation of plasmons in the electron-doped cuprate superconductor Sr${}_{0.9}$La${}_{0.1}$CuO${}_2$ (SLCO). We detect a plasmon gap of $\sim$~120 meV at the two-dimensional Brillouin zone center, indicating that low-energy plasmons in SLCO are not strictly acoustic. The plasmon dispersion, including the gap, is accurately captured by layered $t$-$J$-$V$ model calculations. A similar analysis performed on recent RIXS data from other cuprates suggests that the plasmon gap is generic and its size is related to the magnitude of the interlayer hopping $t_z$. Our work signifies the three-dimensionality of the charge dynamics in layered cuprates and provides a new method to determine $t_z$.

arXiv comment17 pages, 10 figures, includes Supplemental Material. Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters

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Cited by in corpus (22)

• Exploring Quantum Materials with Resonant Inelastic X-Ray Scattering
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• Plasmon dispersion in bilayer cuprate superconductors
• Out-of-plane bond-order phase, superconductivity, and their competition in the $t$-$J_{\parallel }$-$J_{\perp }$ model: Possible implications for bilayer nickelates
• Impact of electron correlations on two-particle charge response in electron- and hole-doped cuprates
• Theory of charge dynamics in bilayer electron system with long-range Coulomb interaction
• Ring-like shaped charge modulations in the t-J model with long-range Coulomb interaction
• Low-energy plasmon excitations in infinite-layer nickelates
• Out-of-phase Plasmon Excitations in the Trilayer Cuprate Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$Ca${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_{10+\delta }$
• Ghost Josephson plasmon in bilayer superconductors
• Plasmarons in high-temperature cuprate superconductors
• Spin and bond-charge excitation spectra in correlated electron systems near antiferromagnetic phase
• Charge density response in layered metals: retardation effects, generalized plasma waves and their spectroscopic signatures
• Dynamic charge order from strong correlations in the cuprates
• Retaining Landau quasiparticles in the presence of realistic charge fluctuations in cuprates
• Strong-coupling theory of bilayer plasmon excitations
• Optical and acoustic plasmons in the layered material Sr${}_2$RuO${}_4$
• Plasmon-sound hybridization in ionic crystals
• Theoretical perspectives on charge dynamics in high-temperature cuprate superconductors
• Observation of correlated plasmons in low-valence nickelates
• Strongly correlated model of acousticlike plasmons persisting across the phase diagram of cuprate superconductors
• Beyond on-site Hubbard interaction in charge dynamics of cuprate superconductors