13 October 2014 The elusive physics of high temperature superconductors

Dynamic screening of charges after prompt electronic excitation

Witnessing the formation and relaxation of dressed quasi-particles in a strongly correlated electron system. The physics of high temperature superconductors continue to remain elusive and questions remain over what is the pairing mechanism that binds electrons into Cooper pairs enabling resistance-free conductivity.

To address part of this issue, a group led by Dr. Fausti at the University of Trieste, in collaboration with ICFO Prof. Simon Wall and other international groups, performed ultrafast optical spectroscopy on the parent high-Tc superconductivity compound La2CuO4. They observed that promptly excited electrons are suddenly dressed by a boson field, indicating the strong coupling between a boson mode and the electronic system for excited electrons.

This study was published in Nature Communications.