Impurity-Induced Bound Excitations on the Surface ofBi2Sr2CaCu2O8

1999/06/01 by Ali Yazdani, Craig Howald, C. M. Howald +4 · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed matter physics #Fermi level #Impurity #Magnetic properties of thin films #Materials science #Optics #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum mechanics #Quantum tunnelling #Scanning tunneling microscope #Scanning tunneling spectroscopy #Scattering #Spectroscopy #Superconductivity #Surface and Thin Film Phenomena #cond-mat.str-el #cond-mat.supr-con

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.83.176

4 pages, revtex, 4 figures. To appear in Physical Review Letters

arxiv created 1999/06/01 · openalex publication_date 1999/07/05 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · arxiv updated 2016/08/31 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We have probed the effects of atomic-scale impurities on superconductivity in Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O₈ by performing low-temperature tunneling spectroscopy measurements with a scanning tunneling microscope. Our results show that nonmagnetic defect structures at the surface create localized low-energy excitations in their immediate vicinity. The impurity-induced excitations occur over a range of energies, including the middle of the superconducting gap, at the Fermi level. Such a zero bias state is a predicted feature for strong nonmagnetic scattering in a d-wave superconductor.

Cited by

• Nanometer scale mapping of the density of states in an inhomogeneous superconductor
• Impurity resonances in the mixed state of high-Tcsuperconductors
• Local spectrum of a superconductor as a probe of interactions between magnetic impurities
• Self-organized topological superconductivity in a Yu-Shiba-Rusinov chain