Evidence for crossover from a Bose-Einstein condensate to a BCS-like superconductor with doping in YBa2Cu3O(7-x) from quasiparticle relaxation dynamics experiments

Abstract

Time resolved measurements of quasiparticle (QP) relaxation dynamics on the femtosecond timescale are reported as a function of temperature and doping in YBa2Cu3O(7-x) for (0.48 < x < 0.1). In the underdoped state (x > 0.15), there is no evidence for any changes in the low-energy gap structure at Tc from either photoinduced QP absorption or QP relaxation time data. In combination with the sum rule, this implies the existence of pre-formed pairs up to a much higher temperature T*. Near x = 0.1 a rapid cross-over is observed, to a state where the QP recombination time diverges and the photoinduced QP density falls to zero at Tc, indicating the existence of a temperature-dependent superconducting gap which closes at Tc.

4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Europhysics Letters

References in corpus (2)

• Quasiparticle relaxation dynamics in superconductors with different gap structures: theory and experiments on YBa_{2}Cu_{3}O_{7-δ}
• a-b plane optical conductivity in YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-delta} above and below T*

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