LARGE BIPOLARONS AND SUPERCONDUCTIVITY

Superconductivity has long been speculated to result from charge carriers paired as mobile charged bosons. Although the pairing of carriers as small (single-site) bipolarons is known, small bipolarons readily localize. By contrast, large (multi-site) bipolarons, in analogy with large polarons, should be mobile. It is shown that large bipolarons can form in solids with very displaceable ions, e.g., many oxides. Large-polaronic (but not small-polaronic) carriers produce absorption spectra like the carrier-induced absorptions observed in cuprates. Redistribution of the self-trapped carriers of large bipolarons among sites of carriers' molecular orbitals in response to atomic motions lowers phonon frequencies. The dependence of the phonon zero-point energy on the spatial distribution of large bipolarons produces a phonon-mediated attraction between them. This dynamic quantum-mechanical attraction fosters the condensation of large bipolarons into a liquid. Superconductivity can result when the large-bipolarons' groundstate remains liquid rather than solidifying.