Interplay of electron–phonon interaction and strong correlations: the possible way to high-temperature superconductivity

Abstract

The pairing mechanism in high- T c-superconductors (HTS) is still, 13 years after the discovery of HTS, under dispute. However, there are experimental evidences that the electron–phonon (E–P) interaction together with strong electronic correlations plays a decisive role in the formation of the normal state and superconductivity. Tunneling spectroscopy shows clear phonon features in the conductance and together with infrared and Raman optic measurements give strong support for the electron–phonon interaction as the pairing mechanism in HTS oxides. The tunneling experiments show also that almost all phonons contribute to the pairing interaction and the E–P interaction is sufficiently large to produce T c∼100 K. The strong E–P interaction is due to (a) the layered and almost ionic-metallic structure of HTS oxides; (b) the almost two-dimensional motion of conduction carriers, which give rise to large contribution of the Madelung energy in the E–P interaction, especially for axial phonons. On the other hand, a variety of phase-sensitive measurements give support for d-wave pairing in HTS oxides, which has been usually interpreted to be due to the spin-fluctuation mechanism. We argue in this review that contrary to low- T c-superconductors (LTS), where the phonon mechanism leads to s-wave pairing, strong electronic correlations in HTS oxides renormalize the electron–phonon (E–P) interaction, as well as other electron–boson scattering processes related to charge fluctuations, in such a way that the forward scattering peak (FSP) appears, while the backward scattering is suppressed. The FSP mechanism is also supported by the long-range Madelung E–P interaction and the former is pronounced for smaller hole doping δ⪡1. The renormalization of the E–P interaction and other charge scattering processes (like impurity scattering) by strong correlations gives rise to (i) a significant (relative) increase of the coupling constant for d-wave pairing λ d making λ d ≈ λ s for δ≤0.2, where λ s is the coupling for s-wave pairing. The residual Coulomb repulsion between quasiparticles (or the interaction via spin fluctuations, which is peaked in the “backward” scattering at Q≈( π, π) ) triggers the system to d-wave pairing, while T c is dominantly due to the E–P interaction; (ii) a reduction (with respect to the pairing coupling constant λ) of the transport E–P coupling constant λ tr(≲ λ/3), i.e. to the quenching of the resistivity ρ( T) where ρ∼ λ tr T for T> Θ D/5; (iii) a suppression of the residual quasiparticle scattering on nonmagnetic impurities; (iv) robustness of d-wave pairing in the presence of nonmagnetic impurities and (v) nonadiabatic corrections to the E–P interaction and accordingly to a possible increase of T c in systems with ω D≲ E F. Furthermore, the development of the forward scattering peak in the E–P interaction of the optimally hole-doped HTS oxides gives rise, besides the d-wave superconductivity, also to (a) the small isotope effect; and (b) the strong temperature dependence of the gap anisotropy. In the overdoped oxides the FSP mechanism and spin fluctuations are suppressed which leads to (a) anisotropic s-wave pairing with moderate gap anisotropy, and (b) an increase of the isotope effect.