Relationship between the parent charge transfer gap and maximum transition temperature in cuprates

One of the biggest puzzles concerning the cuprate high temperature superconductors is what determines the maximum transition temperature (Tc,max), which varies from less than 30 to above 130 K in different compounds. Despite this dramatic variation, a robust trend is that within each family, the double-layer compound always has higher Tc,max than the single-layer counterpart. Here we use scanning tunneling microscopy to investigate the electronic structure of four cuprate parent compounds belonging to two different families. We find that within each family, the double layer compound has a much smaller charge transfer gap size (∆CT), indicating a clear anticorrelation between ∆CT and Tc,max. These results suggest that the charge transfer gap plays a key role in the superconducting physics of cuprates, which shed important new light on the high Tc mechanism from doped Mott insulator perspective.