Dynamics of nonthermal states in optimally doped Bi2Sr2Ca0.92Y0.08Cu2O8+δ revealed by midinfrared three-pulse spectroscopy

Year: 2024

Authors: Montanaro A., Rigoni E.M., Giusti F., Barba L., Chita G., Glerean F., Jarc G., Mathengattil S.Y., Boschini F., Eisaki H., Greven M., Damascelli A., Giannetti C., Mihailovic D., Kabanov V., Fausti D.

Autors Affiliation: Univ Trieste, Dept Phys, I-34127 Trieste, Italy; Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste SCpA, I-34149 Basovizza Trieste, Italy; Univ Erlangen Nurnberg, Dept Phys, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany; Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste SCpA, Inst Crystallog, CNR, I-34149 Basovizza Trieste, Italy; Harvard Univ, Dept Phys, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA; Inst Natl Rech Sci, Ctr Energie Mat Telecommun, Varennes, PQ, Canada; Univ British Columbia, Quantum Matter Inst, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada; Natl Inst Adv Ind Sci & Technol, Res Inst Adv Elect & Photon, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 3058568, Japan; Univ Minnesota, Sch Phys & Astron, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA; Univ British Columbia, Dept Phys & Astron, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada; Univ Cattolica, Dept Math & Phys, I-25121 Brescia, Italy; Univ Cattolica, Interdisciplinary Labs Adv Mat Phys i LAMP, I-25121 Brescia, Italy; CNR, Natl Inst Opt, Via Branze 45, I-25123 Brescia, Italy; Jozef Stefan Inst, Jamova 39, Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia.

Abstract: In the cuprates, the opening of a d-wave superconducting (SC) gap is accompanied by a redistribution of spectral weight at energies two orders of magnitude larger than this gap. This indicates the importance to the pairing mechanism of on-site electronic excitations, such as orbital transitions or charge transfer excitations. Here, we resort to a three-pulse pump-probe scheme to study the broadband nonequilibrium dielectric function in optimally doped Bi2Sr2Ca0.92Y0.08Cu2O8+, and we identify an interband excitation peaked at 2 eV whose spectral weight is transiently modified by the pump. Photoexcitation with near-infrared and midinfrared pulses, with photon energies, respectively, above and below the SC gap, reveals that the spectral weight dynamics is different for different pump wavelengths and depends on the time order of the two photoexcitations. The picture that emerges is that, while high-energy pulses excite quasiparticles in both nodal and thermally inaccessible antinodal states, photoexcitation by low-energy pulses mostly accelerates the condensate and creates excitations predominantly at the nodes of the SC gap. These results, rationalized by simulations based on the kinetic equations for d-wave superconducting gaps, indicate that dynamical control of the momentum-dependent distribution of nonthermal quasiparticles may be achieved by the selective tuning of the photoexcitation.

Journal/Review: PHYSICAL REVIEW B

Volume: 110 (12)      Pages from: 125102-1  to: 125102-15

More Information: The authors acknowledge fruitful discussions with S. Dal Conte and J. Davis. This work was supported by the European Commission through the projects INCEPT (ERC-2015-STG, Grant No. 677488) and COBRAS (ERC-2019-PoC, Grant No. 860365). D.F. acknowledges funding from the MIUR through the PRIN Program No. 2017BZPKSZ and from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through the grant CENTQC. The work at the University of Minnesota was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy through the University of Minnesota Center for Quantum Materials, under Grant No. DE-SC0016371. C.G. acknowledges financial support from MIUR through the PRIN 2020 (Prot. 2020JLZ52N 003) program and from the European Union – Next Generation EU through the MUR- PRIN2022 (Prot. 20228YCYY7) program. H.E. acknowledges support from the JSPS KAKENHI (No. JP19H05823). This research was undertaken thanks in part to funding from the Max Planck-UBC-UTokyo Centre for Quantum Material and the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, Quantum Material and Future Technologies Program. This project is also funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC); the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (A.D.); the Canada Research Chairs Program (A.D.); a nd the CIFAR Quantum Materials Program.
KeyWords: High-temperature Superconductors; Light-induced Superconductivity; Inplane Spectral Weight; Gap; Conductivity; Dependence; Scattering; Transport; Symmetry; Phase
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.110.125102