2004/02/01 by J. Hwang, Jungseek Hwang, T. Timusk +2 · 5 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/nature02347
published as Nature 427, 714-717 (2004) · 4 pages, 3 figures
openalex publication_date 2004/02/01 · arxiv created 2004/02/25 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The fundamental mechanism that gives rise to high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconductivity in the copper oxide materials has been debated since the discovery of the phenomenon. Recent work has focussed on a sharp 'kink' in the kinetic energy spectra of the electrons as a possible signature of the force that creates the superconducting state. The kink has been related to a magnetic resonance and also to phonons. Here we report that infrared spectra of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O(8+d), (Bi-2212) show that this sharp feature can be separated from a broad background and, interestingly, weakens with doping before disappearing completely at a critical doping level of 0.23 holes per copper atom. Superconductivity is still strong in terms of the transition temperature (Tc approx 55 K), so our results rule out both the magnetic resonance peak and phonons as the principal cause of high-Tc superconductivity. The broad background, on the other hand, is a universal property of the copper oxygen plane and a good candidate for the 'glue' that binds the electrons.