Ab-initio calculations of superconducting properties of YBa2Cu3O7

The authors present ab-initio calculations for the electronic structure and superconducting properties of YBa2Cu3O7 (YBCO). The electronic structure was calculated using a self-consistent ab-initio LCAO method. They solved the anisotropic Eliashberg gap equation numerically. The strong coupling of the high energy optical phonons around 60--73 meV, with the electrons at the Fermi surface, leads to a high Tc in YBCO. The calculated Tc is about 89 K for μ* = 0.1. The good agreement of the calculated results with experimental measurements and the ab-initio nature of the calculations support the scenario of an anisotropic s-wave superconductor for YBCO