THEORETICAL DETERMINATION OF SPECIFIC HEAT AND CRITICAL TEMPERATURE OF HIGH-TC CUPRATE SUPERCONDUCTORS BASED ON INTRALAYER AND INTERLAYER INTERACTIONS

Abstract

The role of attractive interlayer and intralayer interactions in layered high-Tc Cuprate superconductors was investigated using a two-layer Hamiltonian. The Hamiltonian was formulated and diagonalized using Bogoliubov canonical transformations to get equations of the ith state, Ei, specific heat, CV in the superconducting state, and critical temperature, Tc. The heat capacity in the superconducting state was analyzed in the temperature domain 10 K ≤ T≤ 100 K. The transition temperature obtained from the graph was 90.7K. This value is the same as that calculated from the derived equation of Tc for Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide which was considered in this study. The variation of transition temperature and on-site Coulomb repulsion U for fixed values of interlayer hopping, t, interlayer interaction, W was analyzed. The study reveals that an increase in interlayer hopping, t and interlayer W increases U which further enhances Tc. Hence interlayer and intralayer interactions play an important role in the enhancement of Tc in layered high-Tc Cuprates. There is agreement between the theoretical results, for instance, the values of CV, Tc and Cs/Cn calculated in this thesis and the experimental results for the high-Tc superconductor Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide.