Persistence of strong electron coupling to a narrow boson spectrum in overdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+Î tunneling data

Abstract

A d-wave, Eliashberg analysis of break-junction and STM tunneling spectra on Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+Î (Bi2212) reveals that the spectral dip feature is directly linked to strong electronic coupling to a narrow boson spectrum, evidenced by a large peak in I'2F(I). The tunneling dip feature remains robust in the overdoped regime of Bi2212 with bulk Tc values of 56Â Ka62Â K. This is contrary to recent optical conductivity measurements of the self-energy that suggest the narrow boson spectrum disappears in overdoped Bi2212 and therefore cannot be essential for the pairing mechanism. The discrepancy is resolved by considering the way each technique probes the electron self-energy, in particular, the unique sensitivity of tunneling to the off-diagonal or pairing part of the self-energy.