Effect of quasiparticles on interlayer transport in highly anisotropic layered superconductors

We have performed a microscopic calculation of the dielectric response func tion in highly anisotropic layered superconductors and used the developed a pproach to obtain the frequency-dependent London penetration length and con ductivity in the case of d-wave pairing for currents perpendicular to the l ayers. We consider a BCS model with coherent interlayer tunneling of electr ons and take into account contributions from both superconducting electrons and quasiparticles to the dielectric response. We show that quasiparticles change the low-temperature behavior of the penetration length in the inter mediate frequency range where the frequency is smaller than the superconduc ting order parameter but larger than the inverse quasiparticle scattering t ime. The obtained results are used to describe the low-temperature behavior of the Josephson plasma resonance, in particular the temperature dependenc e of the resonance frequency and the resonance linewidth in zero external m agnetic field. We compare our results with the available experimental data for Tl2Ba2CuO6 and Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta (Bi-2212) and show that results of a BCS model with coherent interlayer tunneling for the de c-axis resistivity in the superconducting state are inconsistent with experimental data for u nderdoped and optimally doped Bi-2212 crystals. [S0163-1829(99)04917-6].