Microwave conductivity due to impurity scattering in cuprate superconductors

Abstract

The microwave surface impedance measurements on cuprate superconductors provide the crucial information of the effect of the impurity scattering on the quasiparticle transport, however, the full understanding of the effect of the impurity scattering on the quasiparticle transport is still a challenging issue. Here based on the microscopic octet scattering model, the effect of the impurity scattering on the low-temperature microwave conductivity in cuprate superconductors is investigated in the self-consistent $T$-matrix approach. The impurity-dressed electron propagator obtained in the Fermi-arc-tip approximation of the quasiparticle excitations and scattering processes is employed to derive the electron current-current correlation function by taking into account the impurity-induced vertex correction. It is shown that the microwave conductivity spectrum is a non-Drude-like, with a sharp cusp-like peak extending to zero-energy and a high-energy tail falling slowly with energy. Moreover, the microwave conductivity decreases with the increase of the impurity concentration or with the increase of the strength of the impurity scattering potential. In a striking contrast to the dome-like shape of the doping dependence of the superconducting transition temperature, the microwave conductivity exhibits a reverse dome-like shape of the doping dependence. The theory also show that the highly unconventional features of the microwave conductivity are generated by both the strong electron correlation and impurity-scattering effects.