About the role of 2D screening in high temperature superconductivity

The 2D screening is investigated in a simple single band square tight-binding model which qualitatively resembles the known electronic structure in high temperature superconductors. The Coulomb kernel for the two particle Bethe-Salpeter equation in the single loop (RPA) approximation for the polarization can be evaluated in a strong tight-binding limit. The results indicate an intense screening of the Coulomb repulsion between the particles, which becomes stronger and anisotropic when the Fermi level approaches half filling (or, equivalently, when the Fermi surface turns to be near the Van Hove singularities) and rapidly decreases away from it. The effect is also more pronounced for quasi-momenta regions near the corners of the Brillouin cell, which corresponds to dual spatial distances of the order of a few unit cells. Therefore, a possible mechanism is identified which could explain the existence of extremely small Cooper pairs in these materials, as bounded anisotropic composite particles joined by residual super-exchange or phonon interactions.