Coherent emission from surface Josephson plasmons in striped cuprates
Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: The interplay between charge order and superconductivity remains one of the central themes of research in quantum materials. In the case of cuprates, the coupling between striped charge fluctuations and local electromagnetic fields is especially important, as it affects transport properties, coherence, and dimensionality of superconducting correlations. Here, we study the emission of coherent terahertz radiation in single-layer cuprates of the La 2-x Ba x CuO 4 family, for which this effect is expected to be forbidden by symmetry. We find that emission vanishes for compounds in which the stripes are quasi-static but is activated when c -axis inversion symmetry is broken by incommensurate or fluctuating charge stripes, such as in La 1.905 Ba 0.095 CuO 4 and in La 1.845 Ba 0.155 CuO 4 . In this case, terahertz radiation is emitted by surface Josephson plasmons, which are generally dark modes, but couple to free space electromagnetic radiation because of the stripe modulation.
Language: English
Subfield: Condensed Matter Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funders: U.S. Department of Energy, Strong, European Commission, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, European Research Council, Basic Energy Sciences, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Army Research Office, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering
Awards: G1160162850, G1230266125, G1326949761, G1847291448, G213344254, G2354036397, G241279073, G3207356259, EXC 2056: CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter, G393177772, G440953257, G4675369358, G4760961572, G5631081224, G5692702728, G5702163051, G5765906131, G599780147, G6965541988, EXC 1074: Hamburger Zentrum für ultraschnelle Beobachtung (CUI): Struktur, Dynamik und Kontrolle von Materie auf atomarer Skala, SFB 925: Lichtinduzierte Dynamik und Kontrolle korrelierter Quantensysteme, G8337956030
OpenAlex ID: W4296938488