Optical Conductivity in a Two-Band Superconductor: Pb

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the bandstructure influences the optical conductivity in the two-band superconductor Pb, emphasizing the importance of momentum dependence for accurate theoretical predictions matching experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed calculation of optical conductivity in Pb considering momentum-dependent bandstructure and electron-phonon interactions, improving the understanding of strong-coupling features.

Findings

Good agreement with experimental peaks at 4.5 meV and 8 meV.

Scattering within the third band dominates the strong-coupling features.

Momentum dependence significantly affects the accuracy of superconductivity models.

Abstract

We demonstrate the effect of bandstructure on the superconducting properties of Pb by calculating the strong-coupling features in the optical conductivity, $\sigma(\omega)$, due to the electron-phonon interaction. The importance of momentum dependence in the calculation of the properties of superconductors has previously been raised for MgB$_2$. Pb resembles MgB$_2$ in that it is a two band superconductor in which the bands' contributions to the Fermi surface have very different topologies. We calculate $\sigma(\omega)$ by calculating a memory function which has been recently used to analyze $\sigma(\omega)$ of Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+\delta}$. In our calculations the two components of the Fermi surface are described by parameterizations of de Haas--van Alphen data. We use a phonon spectrum which is a fit to neutron scattering data. By including the momentum dependence of the Fermi surface good agreement is found with the experimentally determined strong-coupling features which can be described by a broad peak at around 4.5 meV and a narrower higher peak around 8 meV of equal height. The calculated features are found to be dominated by scattering between states within the third band. By contrast scattering between states in the second band leads to strong-coupling features in which the height of the high energy peak is reduced by $\sim 50%$ compared to that of the low energy peak. This result is similar to that in the conventional isotropic (momentum independent) treatment of superconductivity. Our results show that it is important to use realistic models of the bandstructure and phonons, and to avoid using momentum averaged quantities, in calculations in order to get quantitatively accurate results.