Isotope effect on the superfluid density in conventional and high-temperature superconductors

Maksym Serbyn and Patrick A. Lee
Phys. Rev. B 83, 024506 – Published 19 January 2011

Abstract

We investigate the isotope effect on the London penetration depth of a superconductor which measures nS/m*, the ratio of superfluid density to effective mass. We use a simplified model of electrons weakly coupled to a single phonon frequency ωE, but assume that the energy gap Δ does not have any isotope effect. Nevertheless, we find an isotope effect for nS/m* which is significant if Δ is sufficiently large that it becomes comparable to ωE, a regime of interest to high-Tc cuprate superconductors and possibly other families of unconventional superconductors with relatively high Tc. Our model is too simple to describe the cuprates and it gives the wrong sign of the isotope effect when compared with experiment, but it is a proof of principle that the isotope effect exists for nS/m* in materials where the pairing gap and Tc are not of phonon origin and have no isotope effect.

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  • Received 23 September 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.83.024506

© 2011 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Maksym Serbyn and Patrick A. Lee

  • Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

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Issue

Vol. 83, Iss. 2 — 1 January 2011

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