Long-range focusing of magnetic bound states in superconducting lanthanum

Abstract

Quantum mechanical systems with long-range interactions between quasiparticles provide a promising platform for coherent quantum information technology. Superconductors are a natural choice for solid-state based quantum devices, while magnetic impurities inside superconductors give rise to quasiparticle excitations of broken Cooper pairs that provide characteristic information about the host superconductor. Here, we reveal that magnetic impurities embedded below a superconducting La(0001) surface interact via quasiparticles extending to very large distances, up to several tens of nanometers. Using low-temperature scanning probe techniques, we observe the corresponding anisotropic and giant oscillations in the local density of states. Theoretical calculations indicate that the quasi-two-dimensional surface states with their strongly anisotropic Fermi surface play a crucial role for the focusing and long-range extension of the magnetic bound states. The quasiparticle focusing mechanism should facilitate the design of versatile magnetic structures with tunable and directed magnetic interactions over large distances, thereby paving the way toward the design of low-dimensional magnet-superconductor hybrid systems exhibiting topologically non-trivial quantum states as possible elements of quantum computation schemes based on Majorana quasiparticles.

20 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Observation of Majorana Fermions in Ferromagnetic Atomic Chains on a Superconductor
• Orbital Picture of Yu-Shiba-Rusinov Multiplets
• Long-range Kondo signature of a single magnetic impurity
• Yu-Shiba-Rusinov states of impurities in a triangular lattice of NbSe${}_2$ with spin orbit coupling
• Superconductivity of lanthanum revisited: enhanced critical temperature in the clean limit

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• High-resolution real-space evaluation of the self-energy operator of disordered lattices: Gade singularity, spin-orbit effects and p-wave superconductivity
• Yu-Shiba-Rusinov states in 2D superconductors with arbitrary Fermi contours
• Friedel oscillations induced by magnetic skyrmions: from scattering properties to all-electrical detection
• Quasiparticle focusing of bound states in two-dimensional $s$-wave superconductors
• Boosting the STM's spatial and energy resolution with double-functionalized probe tips
• Effect of Van Hove singularities on Shiba states in two-dimensional $s$-wave superconductors
• Yu-Shiba-Rusinov states in a superconductor with topological Z2 bands
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• Study of Yu-Shiba-Rusinov bound states by tuning the electron density at the Fermi energy
• Diluted Yu-Shiba-Rusinov arrays on the $\beta$-Bi${}_2$Pd anisotropic superconductor
• Cyclic Superconducting Quantum Refrigerators Using Guided Fluxon Propagation
• Magnetic flux induced higher-order topological superconductivity
• Effects of electron-electron interactions in the Yu-Shiba-Rusinov lattice model
• Anisotropy of Yu-Shiba-Rusinov states in NbSe${}_2$
• Real-space visualization of quasiparticle dephasing near the Planckian limit in the Dirac line node material ZrSiS