Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 10 March 1989:
Vol. 243. no. 4896, pp. 1340 - 1343
DOI: 10.1126/science.243.4896.1340
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

The Axial Oxygen Atom and Superconductivity in YBa2Cu3O7

S. D. Conradson 1 and I. D. Raistrick 1

1 Electronics Research and Isotope and Structural Chemistry Groups, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545

Changes in the copper K-edge x-ray absorption spectrum of YBa2Cu3O7 across the critical temperature indicate that, accompanying the superconducting transition, the mean square relative displacement of some fraction of the Cu2-O4 bonds becomes smaller or more harmonic (or both), that there may be a slight increase in the associated Cul-O4 distance, and that electronic states involving these atom pairs become more atomic-like. If there is an association between the superconductivity and this lattice instability, then the bridging axial oxygen is of central importnce in determining the high tranition temperature of YBa2Cu3O7. Because this structural perturbation will affect the dynamic polrizability of the copper oxygen sublattice, it is consistent with an excitonic pairing mhanism in these materials.

Submitted on November 22, 1988
Accepted on January 24, 1989


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Axial Oxygen-Centered Lattice Instabilities and High-Temperature Superconductivity.
S. D. Conradson, I. D. Raistrick, and A. R. Bishop (1990)
Science 248, 1394-1398
   Abstract »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)