Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 105, Issue 51, Pages 20161-20166Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0811335106
Keywords
electron diffraction; electron-phonon coupling; superconductivity; ultrafast
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research in the Gordon
- Betty Moore Center for Physical Biology at Caltech
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The mechanism of electron pairing in high-temperature superconductors is still the subject of intense debate. Here, we provide direct evidence of the role of structural dynamics, with selective atomic motions (buckling of copper-oxygen planes), in the anisotropic electron-lattice coupling. The transient structures were determined using time-resolved electron diffraction, following carrier excitation with polarized femtosecond heating pulses, and examined for different dopings and temperatures. The deformation amplitude reaches 0.5% of the c axis value of 30 angstrom when the light polarization is in the direction of the copper-oxygen bond, but its decay slows down at 45. These findings suggest a selective dynamical lattice involvement with the anisotropic electron phonon coupling being on a time scale (1-3.5 ps depending on direction) of the same order of magnitude as that of the spin exchange of electron pairing in the high-temperature superconducting phase.
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