A PROPOSED NEW MEASUREMENT OF THE SUPERCONDUCTING GAP IN YBa2Cu3O7

Abstract

The superconducting energy gap of YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7 (YBCO) varies strongly with [Formula: see text] and from a sheet of the Fermi surface to another. The strong anisotropic superconducting gap in high Tc materials such as YBCO has led to conflicting d-wave and s-wave interpretations. We have utilized electronic wave functions from the ab-initio density functional calculation and the related electron-phonon interaction matrix elements for the calculation of the superconducting gap values of YBCO. We have found that the superconducting gap on one sheet of the Fermi surface around S-point only shows a minor variation from about 18 meV to 25 meV. Especially, there is no node on this sheet of the Fermi surface around the S-point. We propose a new test measurement of the superconducting gap of YBCO on this sheet of the Fermi surface around the S-point in the Brillouin zone. This measurement is expected to shed light on the gap symmetry properties of high Tc superconductors.