Interpretation of scanning tunneling quasiparticle interference and impurity states in cuprates

Abstract

We apply a recently developed method combining first principles based Wannier functions with solutions to the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations to the problem of interpreting STM data in cuprate superconductors. We show that the observed images of Zn on the surface of Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_8$ can only be understood by accounting for the tails of the Cu Wannier functions, which include significant weight on apical O sites in neighboring unit cells. This calculation thus puts earlier crude "filter" theories on a microscopic foundation and solves a long standing puzzle. We then study quasiparticle interference phenomena induced by out-of-plane weak potential scatterers, and show how patterns long observed in cuprates can be understood in terms of the interference of Wannier functions above the surface. Our results show excellent agreement with experiment and enable a better understanding of novel phenomena in the cuprates via STM imaging.

5 pages, 5 figures, published version (Supplemental Material: 5 pages, 11 figures) for associated video file, see http://itp.uni-frankfurt.de/~kreisel/QPI_BSCCO_BdG_p_W.mp4

References in corpus (8)

• Scanning tunneling spectroscopy of high-temperature superconductors
• A `checkerboard' electronic crystal state in lightly hole-doped Ca_{2-x}Na_{x}CuO_{2}Cl_{2}
• An Intrinsic Bond-Centered Electronic Glass with Unidirectional Domains in Underdoped Cuprates
• How Cooper pairs vanish approaching the Mott insulator in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d
• Evolution of the electronic excitation spectrum with strongly diminishing hole-density in superconducting Bi_{2}Sr_{2}CaCu_{2}O_{8+δ}
• Fourier transform spectroscopy of d-wave quasiparticles in the presence of atomic scale pairing disorder
• Van Hove features in BSCCO(2212) and effective parameters for Ni impurities inferred from STM spectra
• Impurity induced low-energy resonances in Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+delta}

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• From immunity to sudden death: Effects of strong disorder in strongly correlated superconductors
• Density Waves Cause Sub-Gap Structures but no Pseudogap in Superconducting Cuprates
• Revisiting Quasiparticle Scattering Interference in High-Temperature Superconductors: The Problem of Narrow Peaks
• Atomic manipulation of the gap in Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_{8+x}$
• Effective pairing theory for strongly correlated d-wave superconductors
• Phase-sensitive determination of nodal $\mathbf{d}$-wave order parameter in single-band and multiband superconductors