Universality of scanning tunneling microscopy in cuprate superconductors

Abstract

We consider the problem of local tunneling into cuprate superconductors, combining model based calculations for the superconducting order parameter with wavefunction information obtained from first principles electronic structure. For some time it has been proposed that scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) spectra do not reflect the properties of the superconducting layer in the CuO${}_2$ plane directly beneath the STM tip, but rather a weighted sum of spatially proximate states determined by the details of the tunneling process. These "filter" ideas have been countered with the argument that similar conductance patterns have been seen around impurities and charge ordered states in systems with atomically quite different barrier layers. Here we use a recently developed Wannier function based method to calculate topographies, spectra, conductance maps and normalized conductance maps close to impurities. We find that it is the local planar Cu $d_{x^2-y^2}$ Wannier function, qualitatively similar for many systems, that controls the form of the tunneling spectrum and the spatial patterns near perturbations. We explain how, despite the fact that STM observables depend on the materials-specific details of the tunneling process and setup parameters, there is an overall universality in the qualitative features of conductance spectra. In particular, we discuss why STM results on Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_8$ and Ca${}_{2-x}$Na${}_x$CuO${}_2$Cl${}_2$ are essentially identical.

References in corpus (29)

• Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy of the cuprate superconductors
• Scanning tunneling spectroscopy of high-temperature superconductors
• Discovery of microscopic electronic inhomogeneity in the high-Tc superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x
• Imaging the granular structure of high-Tc superconductivity in underdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x
• Imaging the Effects of Individual Zinc Impurity Atoms on Superconductivity in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta
• An Intrinsic Bond-Centered Electronic Glass with Unidirectional Domains in Underdoped Cuprates
• Defects in correlated metals and superconductors
• Resonant x-ray scattering studies of charge order in cuprates
• How Cooper pairs vanish approaching the Mott insulator in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d
• Interplay of magnetism and high-Tc superconductivity at individual Ni impurity atoms in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d
• Impurity-Induced Virtual Bound States in d-Wave Superconductors
• Simultaneous Transitions in Cuprate Momentum-Space Topology and Electronic Symmetry Breaking
• Spectral Properties of Quasiparticle Excitations Induced by Magnetic Moments in Superconductors
• Quasi-particle interference and superconducting gap in a high-temperature superconductor Ca2-xNaxCuO2Cl2
• Evolution of the electronic excitation spectrum with strongly diminishing hole-density in superconducting Bi_{2}Sr_{2}CaCu_{2}O_{8+δ}
• Impurity in a d-wave superconductor: Kondo effect and STM spectra
• Atomic-scale Electronic Structure of the Cuprate d-Symmetry Form Factor Density Wave State
• Impurity states and interlayer tunneling in high temperature superconductors
• Spectroscopic Imaging STM Studies of Electronic Structure in the Superconducting and Pseudogap Phases of Cuprate High-Tc Superconductors
• Interpretation of scanning tunneling quasiparticle interference and impurity states in cuprates
• Visualization of atomic-scale phenomena in superconductors: application to FeSe
• Effect of unitary impurities in non-STM-types of tunneling in high-T_c superconductors
• Spectral decomposition and matrix element effects in scanning tunneling spectroscopy of Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_{8+\delta }$
• Incommensurate charge ordered states in the $t-t^{\prime }-J$ model
• Ab Initio Calculation of Impurity Effects in Copper Oxide Materials
• Impact of Iron-site defects on Superconductivity in LiFeAs
• Van Hove features in BSCCO(2212) and effective parameters for Ni impurities inferred from STM spectra
• Extended Hubbard model with renormalized Wannier wave functions in the correlated state III: Statistically consistent Gutzwiller approximation and the metallization of atomic solid hydrogen
• Universal scaling behavior of the c-axis resistivity of high-temperature superconductors

Cited by in corpus (19)

• Superconducting Instabilities in Strongly-Correlated Infinite-Layer Nickelates
• Atomic-scale Electronic Structure of the Cuprate Pair Density Wave State Coexisting with Superconductivity
• Quasiparticle Interference of the van-Hove singularity in Sr${}_2$RuO${}_4$
• Scattering Interference Signature of a Pair Density Wave State in the Cuprate Pseudogap Phase
• Charge trapping and super-Poissonian noise centers in a cuprate high-temperature superconductor
• On the engineering of higher-order Van Hove singularities in two dimensions
• Electronic Theory for Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Spectra in Infinite-Layer Nickelate Superconductors
• Local signatures of altermagnetism
• Atomic manipulation of the gap in Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_{8+x}$
• Extremely correlated fermi liquid of $t$-$J$ model in two dimensions
• Direct comparison of ARPES, STM, and quantum oscillation data for band structure determination in Sr${}_2$RhO${}_4$
• Intertwined Orders and Electronic Structure in Superconducting Vortex Halos
• calcQPI: A versatile tool to simulate quasiparticle interference
• Quasiparticle scattering interference in cuprate superconductors
• Unveiling Stripe-shaped Charge Density Modulations in Doped Mott Insulators
• Theory of Josephson scanning microscopy with $s$-wave tip on unconventional superconducting surface: application to Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_{8+\delta }$
• Theory of anisotropic elastoresistivity of two-dimensional extremely strongly correlated metals
• Atomic-Scale Visualization of the Cuprate Pair Density Wave State
• Tomographic mapping of the hidden dimension in quasi-particle interference