Electronic Structure of Ladder Cuprates

TL;DR

This paper investigates the electronic structure of ladder cuprates using LDA calculations, revealing anisotropic hopping parameters and their impact on conductivity, with results aligning closely with experimental data.

Contribution

It provides detailed LDA-based analysis of ladder cuprates, highlighting the anisotropy in hopping parameters caused by the ladder structure and estimating conductivity.

Findings

Strong anisotropy between intra- and inter-ladder hopping

Hopping parameters consistent with experimental conductivity

Ladder structure causes significant electronic anisotropy

Abstract

We study the electronic structure of the ladder compounds (SrCa)CuO 14-24-41 and SrCuO 123. LDA calculations for both give similar Cu 3d-bands near the Fermi energy. The hopping parameters estimated by fitting LDA energy bands show a strong anisotropy between the t_perp t_par intra-ladder hopping and small inter-ladder hopping. A downfolding method shows that this anisotropy arises from the ladder structure.The conductivity perpendicular to the ladders is computed assuming incoherent tunneling giving a value close to experiment.