Two-component superconductivity. I. Introduction and phenomenology

Abstract

A two-component theory of superconductivity is developed where one electronic component provides mobility and the other provides pairing. For the Cu-O-based high-Tc materials the two components are identified with mobile electronic states associated Cu-O planes, and localized negative-U states associated with oxygen vacancies in the Cu-O planes. An explicit comparison of phenomenology with BCS theory is performed including comparison with experiments on YBa2Cu3O7. The discussion includes quantitative comparison of the superconducting properties Tc, Δ, Hc, and ξ. Long-wave collective excitations, normal-state properties including resistance and tunneling, and the isotope shift are described. Unusual properties are predicted including neutral-fermion excitations, a spreading of the fermionic gap onset, a separation between the resistive transition Tc′ and the evaporation of the condensate Tc, anomalies in sound and bulk modulii at Tc, linear temperature dependence of normal-state resistivity, linear voltage dependence in normal-state tunneling conductance, and finite zero-bias conductance in superconducting-state tunneling. A new signature of structural coherence obtained by channeling experiments is indicated.

Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval

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