Ubiquitous Coexisting Electron-Mode Couplings in High Temperature Cuprate Superconductors

TL;DR

This study reveals that electrons in high-temperature cuprate superconductors ubiquitously couple with two distinct phonon modes across various conditions, offering insights into their role in high-temperature superconductivity.

Contribution

The paper uncovers the simultaneous coupling of electrons with two sharp phonon modes in cuprates, clarifying previous sporadic observations and advancing understanding of electron-phonon interactions.

Findings

Electrons couple with ~70meV and ~40meV phonon modes.

Electron-phonon coupling persists across all doping levels and temperatures.

The 'peak-dip-hump' structure originates from these two phonon modes.

Abstract

In conventional superconductors, the electron-phonon coupling plays a dominant role in pairing the electrons and generating superconductivity. In high temperature cuprate superconductors, the existence of the electron coupling with phonons and other boson modes and its role in producing high temperature superconductivity remain unclear. The evidence of the electron-boson coupling mainly comes from the angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES) observations of the ~70meV nodal dispersion kink and the ~40meV antinodal kink. However, the reported results are sporadic and the nature of the involved bosons are still under debate. Here we report new findings of ubiquitous two coexisting electron-mode couplings in cuprate superconductors. By taking ultra-high resolution laser-based ARPES measurements, combined with the improved second derivative analysis method, we discovered that the electrons are coupled simultaneously with two sharp phonon modes with energies of ~70meV and ~40meV in different superconductors with different doping levels, over the entire momentum space and at different temperatures above and below the superconducting transition temperature. The observed electron-phonon couplings are unusual because the associated energy scales do not exhibit an obvious change across the superconducting transition. We further find that the well-known "peak-dip-hump" structure, which has long been considered as a hallmark of superconductivity, is also omnipresent and consists of finer structures that originates from electron coupling with two sharp phonon modes. These comprehensive results provide a unified picture to reconcile all the reported observations and pinpoint the origin of the electron-mode couplings in cuprate superconductors. They provide key information to understand the role of the electron-phonon coupling in generating high temperature superconductivity.