Tuesday, June 12, 2012

1206.2300 (Christopher L. Smallwood et al.)

Tracking Cooper Pairs in a Cuprate Superconductor by Ultrafast
Angle-Resolved Photoemission
   [PDF]

Christopher L. Smallwood, James P. Hinton, Christopher Jozwiak, Wentao Zhang, Jake D. Koralek, Hiroshi Eisaki, Dung-Hai Lee, Joseph Orenstein, Alessandra Lanzara
In high-temperature superconductivity, the process that leads to the formation of Cooper pairs, the fundamental charge carriers in any superconductor, remains mysterious. We use a femtosecond laser pump pulse to perturb superconducting Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+{\delta}, and study subsequent dynamics using time- and angle-resolved photoemission and infrared reflectivity probes. Gap and quasiparticle population dynamics reveal marked dependencies on both excitation density and crystal momentum. Close to the d-wave nodes, the superconducting gap is sensitive to the pump intensity and Cooper pairs recombine slowly. Far from the nodes pumping affects the gap only weakly and recombination processes are faster. These results demonstrate a new window into the dynamical processes that govern quasiparticle recombination and gap formation in cuprates.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.2300

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