Effects of antiferromagnetic planes on the superconducting properties of multilayered high-Tc cuprates

TL;DR

This paper investigates how antiferromagnetic planes influence the superconducting properties in multilayered cuprates, revealing that AF exchange splitting suppresses certain couplings, enabling high T_c through long-range Josephson effects.

Contribution

It introduces a perturbative calculation of Josephson coupling in multilayered cuprates, showing how AF planes can support high T_c by modifying interlayer interactions.

Findings

AF exchange splitting suppresses pi-Josephson coupling

Long-range 0-Josephson coupling enables coexistence of AF and SC

High T_c is achievable through this coupling mechanism

Abstract

We propose a mechanism for high critical temperature (T_c) in the coexistent phase of superconducting- (SC) and antiferromagnetic (AF) CuO_2 planes in multilayered cuprates. The Josephson coupling between the SC planes separated by an AF insulator (Mott insulator) is calculated perturbatively up to the fourth order in terms of the hopping integral between adjacent CuO_2 planes. It is shown that the AF exchange splitting in the AF plane suppresses the so-called pi-Josephson coupling, and the long-ranged 0-Josephson coupling leads to coexistence with a rather high value of T_c.