Reflectivity and microwave absorption in crystals with alternating intrinsic Josephson junctions

We compute the frequency and magnetic field dependencies of the reflectivity R(omega) in layered superconductors with two alternating intrinsic Josephson junctions with different critical current densities and quasiparticle conductivities for the electric field polarized along the c axis. The parameter alpha describing the electronic compressibility of the layers and the charge coupling of neighboring junctions was extracted for the SmLa1-xSr xCuO (4-delta) superconductor from two independent optical measurements, the fit of the loss function L(omega) at zero magnetic field and the magnetic field dependence of the peak positions in L(omega). The experiments are consistent with a free electron value for alpha.     

Spectroscopy of magnetic excitations in magnetic superconductors using vortex motion

In magnetic superconductors a moving vortex lattice is accompanied by an ac magnetic field which leads to the generation of spin waves. At resonance conditions the dynamics of vortices in magnetic superconductors changes drastically, resulting in strong peaks in the dc I-V characteristics at voltages at which the washboard frequency of the vortex lattice matches the spin wave frequency omegaS(g), where g are the reciprocal vortex lattice vectors. We show that if the washboard frequency lies above the magnetic gap, measurement of the I-V characteristics provides a new method to obtain information on the spectrum of magnetic excitations in borocarbides and cuprate layered magnetic superconductors.     

Raman scattering and short range order in amorphous germanium

Variations in short range order of amorphous Ge films are determined from a combination of depolarized Raman scattering, optical absorption, and previous radial distribution function studies. An estimated minimum value of the bond angle width of Δθ ? 9°, obtained for evaporated, anneal stable a-Ge differs significantly from a recent EXAFS estimate. The maximum disorder observed in dc sputtered films deposited at ～90K indicates that an ～20% variation in bond angle width is possible in a-Ge. Substantial modification of the Raman spectrum of the low temperature film annealed at 300K also demonstrates that lower temperature structural relaxation processes involve changes in short range order.     

Interlayer quasiparticle transport in the vortex state of josephson coupled superconductors

We calculate the dependence of the interlayer quasiparticle conductivity, sigma(q), in a Josephson coupled d-wave superconductor on the magnetic field B parallelc and the temperature T. We consider a clean superconductor with resonant impurity scattering and a dominant coherent interlayer tunneling. When pancake vortices in adjacent layers are weakly correlated, at low T the conductivity increases sharply with B over a field scale determined by the impurity scattering, before reaching an extended region of slow linear growth. At high T the conductivity initially decreases and then reaches the same linear regime. For correlated pancakes, sigma(q) increases much more strongly with the applied field.