Nanoscale phase separation and pseudogap in the hole-doped cuprates from fluctuating Cu-O-Cu bonds

TL;DR

This paper proposes that the pseudogap phase in high-Tc cuprates can be explained by the interplay of electronic and nonlinear electron-phonon interactions, emphasizing the role of fluctuating Cu-O-Cu bonds and suggesting new ways to control this phase.

Contribution

It introduces a model where pseudogap features emerge from electron-phonon interactions without requiring disorder, highlighting the importance of oxygen bonds in cuprates.

Findings

Reproduces pseudogap features through electron-phonon interactions.

Shows electronic segregation arises naturally without disorder.

Highlights the role of oxygen bonds in the pseudogap phase.

Abstract

The pseudogap phenomenology is one of the enigmas of the physics of high-Tc superconductors. Many members of the cuprate family have now been characterized with high resolution in both real and momentum space, which revealed highly anisotropic Fermi arcs and local domain which break rotational symmetry in the CuO2 plane at the intraunit cell level. While most theoretical approaches to date have focused on the role of electronic correlations and doping-induced disorder to explain these features, we show that many features of the pseudogap phase can be reproduced by considering the interplay between electronic and nonlinear electron-phonon interactions within a model of fluctuating Cu-O-Cu bonds. Remarkably, we find electronic segregation arises naturally without the need to explicitly include disorder. Our approach points not only to the key role played by the oxygen bond in the pseudogap phase, but opens different directions to explore how nonequilibrium lattice excitation can be used to control the properties of the pseudogap phase.