Optical melting of the transverse Josephson plasmon: A comparison between bilayer and trilayer cuprates

We report on an investigation of the redistribution of interlayer coherence in the trilayer cuprate Bi₂Sr₂Ca₂Cu₃O₁₀. The experiment is performed under the same apical-oxygen phonon excitation discussed in the past for the bilayer cuprate YBa₂Cu₃O6.5. In Bi₂Sr₂Ca₂Cu₃O₁₀, we observe a similar spectral weight loss at the transverse plasma mode resonance as that seen in YBa₂Cu₃O6.5. However, this feature is not accompanied by the light-enhanced interlayer coherence that was found in YBa₂Cu₃O₆₊ₓ, for which the transverse plasma mode is observed at equilibrium even in the normal state. These new observations offer an experimental perspective in the context of the physics of light-enhanced interlayer coupling in various cuprates.