Scanning tunneling spectroscopy study of the proximity effect in a disordered two-dimensional metal

Abstract

The proximity effect between a superconductor and a highly diffusive two-dimensional metal was revealed in a Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy experiment. The in-situ elaborated samples consisted of superconducting single crystalline Pb islands interconnected by a non-superconducting atomically thin disordered Pb wetting layer. In the vicinity of each superconducting island the wetting layer acquires specific tunneling characteristics which reflect the interplay between the proximity-induced superconductivity and the inherent electron correlations of this ultimate diffusive two-dimensional metal. The observed spatial evolution of the tunneling spectra was accounted for theoretically by combining the Usadel equations with the theory of dynamical Coulomb blockade; the relevant length and energy scales were extracted and found in agreement with available experimental data.

5 pages, 3 figures, supporting information available in the journal web site or upon request

References in corpus (3)

• Phase controlled superconducting proximity effect probed by tunneling spectroscopy
• Visualizing landscapes of the superconducting gap in heterogeneous superconductor thin films: geometric influences on proximity effects
• Dephasing of Cooper pairs and subgap electron transport in superconducting hybrids

Cited by in corpus (35)

• Remarkable effects of disorder on superconductivity of single atomic layers of lead on silicon
• Theory of the spin-galvanic effect and the anomalous phase-shift ${\phi }_0$ in superconductors and Josephson junctions with intrinsic spin-orbit coupling
• Two-dimensional Superconductors with Atomic-scale Thicknesses
• The energy resolution function of a tunnel junction
• Evidence for time-reversal symmetry breaking of the superconducting state near twin-boundary interfaces in FeSe
• Field-dependent nonlinear surface resistance and its optimization by surface nano-structuring in superconductors
• Proximity effect between two superconductors spatially resolved by scanning tunneling spectroscopy
• Spectroscopic evidence for strong correlations between local superconducting gap and local Altshuler-Aronov density-of-states suppression in ultrathin NbN films
• Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy of Proximity Superconductivity in Epitaxial Multilayer Graphene
• Critical Josephson current in the dynamical Coulomb blockade regime
• Electronic properties of emergent topological defects in chiral $p$-wave superconductivity
• Enhancement and termination of the superconducting proximity effect due to atomic-scale defects visualized by scanning tunneling microscopy
• Hard gap in a normal layer coupled to a superconductor
• Proximity effect in normal-metal quasiparticle traps
• Superconducting proximity effect and order parameter fluctuations in disordered and quasiperiodic systems
• Disorder-induced suppression of superconductivity in the Si(111)-($\sqrt{7}\times \sqrt{3}$)-In surface: Scanning tunneling microscopy study
• Subgap resonant quasiparticle transport in normal-superconductor quantum dot devices
• Closing the superconducting gap in small Pb-nanoislands with high magnetic fields
• Zero-bias anomaly in nano-scale hole-doped Mott insulators on a triangular silicon surface
• Two-band superconductivity of bulk and surface states in Ag thin films on Nb
• Creating Nanostructured Superconductors On Demand by Local Current Annealing
• Multigap superconductivity and interaction driven resonances in superconducting nanofilms with an inner potential barrier
• Coulomb Blockade Effects in a Topological Insulator Grown on a High-Tc Cuprate Superconductor
• Tuning vortex fluctuations and the resistive transition in superconducting films with a thin overlayer
• Theory of a Single Magnetic Impurity on a Thin Metal Film in Proximity to a Superconductor
• Position-dependent effect of non-magnetic impurities on superconducting properties of nanowires
• Secondary "Smile"-gap in the density of states of a diffusive Josephson junction for a wide range of contact types
• Equally Spaced Quantum States in van der Waals Epitaxy-Grown Nanoislands
• Theoretical proposal to obtain strong Majorana evidence from scanning tunneling spectroscopy of a vortex with a dissipative environment
• In situ tuning of dynamical Coulomb blockade on Andreev bound states in hybrid nanowire devices
• Local density of states in clean two-dimensional superconductor--normal metal--superconductor heterostructures
• Anomalous superconducting proximity effect of planar Pb-RhPb2 heterojunctions in the clean limit
• Strong phase coherence and vortex matter in a fractal system with proximity-induced superconductivity
• Dynamical Coulomb Blockade as a Signature of the Sign-Reversing Cooper Pairing Potential
• Superconducting and spin-density wave phases probed by scanning tunneling spectroscopy in the organic conductor $(\mathrm{TMTSF}{)}_2\mathrm{Cl}{\mathrm{O}}_4$