Condensed Matter Seminars

Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) has emerged as a powerful tool for studying high-temperature superconducting materials. In the talk, I will show how a theory based on non-interacting quasi-particles can describe recent experimental data on optimally doped and overdoped YBa2Cu3O6+x [Minola et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 217003 (2015)]. Surprisingly, the RIXS signal is qualitatively different from those measured using a different cuprate material, Bi2Sr2CuO6+x [Guarise et al., Nat. Commun. 5, 5760 (2014)], a feature originally attributed to collective magnetic excitations. I will demonstrate that this discrepancy can be explained by the sensitivity of RIXS to details of the band structures of these materials, especially at energies well above the Fermi surface. This energy range is inaccessible to traditionally used band structure probes, such as angle-resolved photemisson spectroscopy, making RIXS a powerful band structure probe, potentially applicable to a wide range of materials.