Size effect on the electron–phonon coupling in CuO nanocrystals

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Abstract
CuO is the prototype compound of cuprate superconductors, so understanding its electronic structures will facilitate the study of the pairing mechanism and miscellaneous states of high-temperature superconductors. We prepared uniform CuO nanocrystals (7-100 nm) and studied their size-dependent Raman scattering spectra. The relative variation between the two-phonon scattering band (2B(g)) and the one-phonon band (B(g)) indicates a decreasing electron-phonon coupling with reducing size, which unveils the dominant Fröhlich electron-phonon coupling, as indicated by Devreese, but not the small polaron in CuO. Moreover, the anomalous enhancement of the multi-phonon band at a critical size and 1D structure at room temperature is attributable to an enhanced electron-phonon coupling accompanied by phonon-plasmon coupling, i.e., the 'plasphon' proposed by Alexandrov et al in 1981.

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