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Interplay of electron–lattice interactions and superconductivity in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ

Nature volume 442, pages 546–550 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Formation of electron pairs is essential to superconductivity. For conventional superconductors, tunnelling spectroscopy has established that pairing is mediated by bosonic modes (phonons); a peak in the second derivative of tunnel current d2I/dV2 corresponds to each phonon mode1,2,3. For high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconductivity, however, no boson mediating electron pairing has been identified. One explanation could be that electron pair formation4 and related electron–boson interactions are heterogeneous at the atomic scale and therefore challenging to characterize. However, with the latest advances in d2I/dV2 spectroscopy using scanning tunnelling microscopy, it has become possible to study bosonic modes directly at the atomic scale5. Here we report d2I/dV2 imaging6,7,8 studies of the high-Tc superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ. We find intense disorder of electron–boson interaction energies at the nanometre scale, along with the expected modulations in d2I/dV2 (refs 9, 10). Changing the density of holes has minimal effects on both the average mode energies and the modulations, indicating that the bosonic modes are unrelated to electronic or magnetic structure. Instead, the modes appear to be local lattice vibrations, as substitution of 18O for 16O throughout the material reduces the average mode energy by approximately 6 per cent—the expected effect of this isotope substitution on lattice vibration frequencies5. Significantly, the mode energies are always spatially anticorrelated with the superconducting pairing-gap energies, suggesting an interplay between these lattice vibration modes and the superconductivity.

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Figure 1: Atomic-resolution d2I /d V2(r, E ) imaging of electron–boson interactions in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+ δ.
Figure 3: Doping dependence of electron–boson interactions of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+ δ.
Figure 2: Ubiquitous quasi-periodic spatial modulations in d 2 I /d V 2 (r, ω ) signals, after gap referencing.
Figure 4: Doping dependence of energy gap histograms and boson energy histograms in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+ δ.
Figure 5: 18 O/ 16 O isotope effects on d 2 I /d V 2 (r, ω ) spectra and the distribution of boson energies.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the following people for discussions and communications: Ar. Abanov, P. W. Anderson, N. Ashcroft, T. P. Devereaux, T. Egami, M. Eshrig, C. Henley, P. J. Hirschfeld, A. Lanzara, D.-H. Lee, P. Littlewood, D. Morr, K. A. Müller, M. R. Norman, J. Orenstein, T. M. Rice, J. Rowell, D. J. Scalapino, Z.-X. Shen, C. M. Varma and A. Zettl. This work was supported by an LDRD from Los Alamos National Laboratory, a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Science and Education (Japan), the 21st-Century COE Program of JSPS, by Cornell University and by the Office of Naval Research; K.F. acknowledges Fellowship support from the ICAM International Materials Institute.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. LASSP, Department of Physics, Cornell University, New York, 14853, Ithaca, USA

    Jinho Lee, K. Fujita, K. McElroy, J. A. Slezak, M. Wang & J. C. Davis

  2. Department of Physics, University of Tokyo, 113-8656, Tokyo, Japan

    K. Fujita, M. Ishikado & S. Uchida

  3. Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, 94720, Berkeley, USA

    K. McElroy

  4. AIST, 1-1-1 Central 2, Umezono, 305-8568, Ibaraki, Tsukuba, Japan

    Y. Aiura, H. Bando & H. Eisaki

  5. Department of Physics, Osaka University, 1-1 Machikaneyama, 560-0043, Osaka, Toyonaka, Japan

    T. Masui

  6. Theoretical Division, MS B262, Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, 87545, Los Alamos, USA

    J.-X. Zhu & A. V. Balatsky

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  1. Jinho Lee
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Correspondence to J. C. Davis.

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Lee, J., Fujita, K., McElroy, K. et al. Interplay of electron–lattice interactions and superconductivity in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ. Nature 442, 546–550 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04973

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