A major impediment to solving the problem of high-Tc superconductivity is the ongoing confusion about the magnitude, structure and doping dependence of the superconducting gap, Δ0, and of the mysterious pseudogap found in underdoped samples\cite{TallonLoram}. The pseudogap opens around the (π,0) antinodes below a temperature T∗ leaving Fermi arcs across the remnant Fermi surface\cite{Kanigel} on which the superconducting gap forms at Tc. One thing that seems agreed is that the ratio 2Δ0/kBTc well exceeds the BCS value and grows with underdoping\cite{Miyakawa1,Miyakawa2}, suggesting unconventional, non-BCS superconductivity. Here we re-examine data from many spectroscopies, especially Raman B1g and B2g scattering\cite{Sacuto,Guyard}, and reconcile them all within a two-gap scenario showing that the points of disagreement are an artefact of spectral-weight loss arising from the pseudogap. Crucially, we find that Δ0(p), or more generally the order parameter, now scales with the mean-field Tc value, adopting the weak-coupling BCS ratio across the entire phase diagram.
@article{arxiv.0908.4430,
title = {Energy gaps in high-$T_c$ superconductors: BCS after all?},
author = {J. L. Tallon and J. G. Storey},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0908.4430},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
7 pages, 4 figures, a key reference is the arXiv paper arXiv:0908.4428