Giant Resonant Enhancement of Photoinduced Dynamical Cooper Pairing, far above $T_c$

TL;DR

This paper proposes a theoretical mechanism explaining how resonant excitation of phonon modes can dramatically enhance light-induced superconductivity at temperatures well above the equilibrium critical temperature, aligning with recent experimental observations.

Contribution

The authors develop a minimal non-linear Holstein model demonstrating that resonant driving of phonon modes modulates electron-phonon coupling, leading to Floquet-BCS instabilities at high temperatures.

Findings

Resonant phonon driving enhances electron pairing interactions.

Dynamical modulation of electron-electron attraction exceeds equilibrium $T_c$.

The mechanism explains experimental observations of high-temperature light-induced superconductivity.

Abstract

Pump-probe experiments performed on $\mathrm{K}_3\mathrm{C}_{60}$ have unveiled both optical and transport signatures of metastable light-induced superconductivity up to room temperature, far above $T_c$. Recent experiments have uncovered that excitation in the vicinity of $50 ~\textrm{meV}$ enables the observation of high temperature light-induced superconductivity at significantly lower fluences. Inspired by these experiments we develop a mechanism which can explain such a giant resonant enhancement of light-induced superconductivity. Within a minimal non-linear Holstein model, we show that resonantly driving optical Raman modes leads to a time-dependent electron-phonon coupling. Such a coupling then modulates the effective electron-electron attraction, with the strongest modulations occurring when the drive is resonant with the phonon frequency. These dynamical modulations of the pairing interactions lead to Floquet-BCS instabilities at temperatures far exceeding equilibrium $T_c$, as observed in experiments. We conclude by discussing the implications of our general analysis on the $\mathrm{K}_3\mathrm{C}_{60}$ experiments specifically and suggesting experimental signatures of our mechanism.