Published December 1996 | Version v1
Journal article

Large copper isotope effect in oxygen depleted YBa2Cu3Oy: Importance of Cu-dominated phonon modes in the pairing mechanism

  • 1. Morris Research, Inc., 44 Marguerita Road, Kensington, California 94707 (United States)
  • 2. Institute of Molecular Physics, Russian Research Center ''Kurchatov Institute'', Moscow (Russia)

Description

We have measured the copper isotope effect in YBa2Cu3Oy. We find a large positive copper-isotope exponent (αCu≅0.37) in the underdoped plateau region (y∼6.6). The exponent decreases to zero (or slightly negative) in the optimally doped region (y∼6.94). The αCu in YBa2Cu3O6.6 is similar to the αO (oxygen-isotope exponent) in YBa2-xLaxCu3Oy with the same Tc. These comparable values of αCu and αO show that phonons which involve Cu motion as well as the (high-frequency) modes of the oxygen in the CuO2 planes are important in the pairing mechanism. copyright 1996 The American Physical Society

Additional details

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Physical Review. B, Condensed Matter
Journal Volume
54
Journal Issue
21
Journal Page Range
p. 14956-14959.
ISSN
0163-1829
CODEN
PRBMDO