Electronic Structure and Superconductivity of High T sub c Cu-Oxides (21 April 1989)

The electronic structure of the high T sub c superconducting compounds La sub 2 CuO sub 4 and YBa sub 2 Cu sub 3 O sub 7 is discussed. The 40K material La sub 2 CuO sub 4 is analyzed in detail. The conventional band picture yields a metal which because of strong Fermi-surface nesting would undergo a Peierls-type CDW transition. 

This is not observed experimentally. Starting from the opposite point of view, the localized Hubbard-Mott picture, the complex orbital structure requires the knowledge of several copper and oxygen many-electron parameters (U,V). These may be inferred from other transition metal compounds, derived from spectroscopic experiments or directly calculated within density functional theory. 

The values of these many-electron parameters are discussed and their influence on the electronic structure is assessed. Finally, different pairing models for superconductivity are reviewed in the light of these findings.