New Josephson plasma modes in underdoped YBa2Cu3O6.6 induced by a parallel magnetic field -: art. no. 247001

The c-axis reflectivity spectrum of underdoped YBa2Cu3O6.6 (YBCO) is measured below T-c = 59 K in parallel magnetic fields H parallel to CuO2 up to 7 T. Upon application of a parallel field, a new peak appears at finite frequency in the optical conductivity at the expense of suppression of c-axis condensate weight. We conclude that the dramatic change originates from different Josephson coupling strengths between bilayers with and without Josephson vortices. We find that the 400 cm(-1) broad conductivity peak in YBCO gains the spectral weight under parallel magnetic field; this indicates that the condensate weight at omega = 0 is distributed to this peak as well as to the new optical Josephson mode.