Orbitally Selective Resonant Photodoping to Enhance Superconductivity

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that orbitally selective resonant photodoping at 800 nm can enhance superconductivity in cuprates by inducing charge transfer between layers, effectively tuning doping levels.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism of resonant photodoping that selectively excites orbitals to enhance superconductivity in high-Tc cuprates.

Findings

Resonant excitation at 800 nm induces charge transfer to reservoir layers.

Photoinduced charge transfer effectively alters in-plane doping levels.

Enhanced superconductivity observed near the 1/8 doping anomaly.

Abstract

Signatures of superconductivity at elevated temperatures above $T_c$ in high temperature superconductors have been observed near 1/8 hole doping for photoexcitation with infrared or optical light polarized either in the CuO$_2$-plane or along the $c$-axis. While the use of in-plane polarization has been effective for incident energies aligned to specific phonons, $c$-axis laser excitation in a broad range between 5 $\mu$m and 400 nm was found to affect the superconducting dynamics in striped La$_{1.885}$Ba$_{0.115}$CuO$_4$, with a maximum enhancement in the $1/\omega$ dependence to the conductivity observed at 800 nm. This broad energy range, and specifically 800 nm, is not resonant with any phonon modes, yet induced electronic excitations appear to be connected to superconductivity at energy scales well above the typical gap energies in the cuprates. A critical question is what can be responsible for such an effect at 800 nm? Using time-dependent exact diagonalization, we demonstrate that the holes in the CuO$_2$ plane can be photoexcited into the charge reservoir layers at resonant wavelengths within a multi-band Hubbard model. This orbitally selective photoinduced charge transfer effectively changes the in-plane doping level, which can lead to an enhancement of $T_c$ near the 1/8 anomaly.