Weak Coupling Electron-Phonon for High Tc Superconductors

Abstract

Our opinion is that, in the high Tc copper oxides, the electronic correlations are not large enough to allow the localization of the electrons of the half-filled d-p sub-band. Thus, we treat them as itinerant electrons, in a bidimensional structure. And we show that, contrary to a widely held opinion, the electron-phonon interaction can induce high Tc superconductivity in these compounds, even in the weak coupling limit. This is due to the fact that, because of the bidimensionality, the electronic density of states is sharply peaked in the neighbourhood of the Fermi energy. A small coupling between nearest neighbouring CuO2 planes is sufficient to prevent a very large reduction of Tc by the critical fluctuations. The calculated isotope effect is much smaller than usually in the BCS theory. And, in our weak coupling theory, the antiferromagnetic (AF) phase is much more rapidly destabilized by dopping or internal charge transfer than the superconducting phase, which takes place when the AF phase has vanished.