The Superconducting and Pseudogap Phase Diagram of High-Tc Cuprates

Abstract

We derive analytic expressions for the critical temperatures of the superconducting (SC) and pseudogap (PG) phases of the high-Tc cuprates, which are in excellent agreement with the experimental data for single-layered materials such as LSCO, Bi2201 and Hg1201. Our effective Hamiltonian, defined in the oxygen square sub-lattices formed by the alternate hybridization of $p_x$ and $p_y$ orbitals with the $3d$ copper orbitals, provides an unified explanation for the $d_{x^2-y^2}$ symmetry of both the SC and PG order parameters. Attractive and repulsive interactions involve holes of the two different sublattices and can be derived from the spin-fermion model. Optimal doping occurs when the chemical potential vanishes. For $N$-layered cuprates, the growth of the optimal temperature with $N$, as well as the trend of the SC and AF domes to superimpose, can be simply understood. Our results for the optimal SC transition temperature are in excellent agreement with the experiments for $N=2$ materials of the $Bi$ and $Hg$ families. For $N=3$ the agreement is still satisfactory, while for $N>3$, it becomes poor. The explanation for these facts allows us to suggest a method for increasing the critical SC temperature in cuprates.