Role of Inelastic Tunneling through the Barrier in Scanning Tunneling Microscope Experiments on Cuprates

Abstract

The tunneling path between the CuO2-layers in cuprate superconductors and a scanning tunneling microscope tip passes through a barrier made from other oxide layers. This opens up the possibility that inelastic processes in the barrier contribute to the tunneling spectra. Such processes cause one or possibly more peaks in the second derivative current-voltage spectra displaced by phonon energies from the density of states singularity associated with superconductivity. Calculations of inelastic processes generated by apical O-phonons show good qualitative agreement with recent experiments reported by Lee et al.[1]. Further tests to discriminate between these inelastic processes and coupling to planar phonons are proposed.

4 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Interplay of electron-lattice interactions and superconductivity in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d
• Doping dependence of the coupling of electrons to bosonic modes in the single-layer high-temperature Bi2Sr2CuO6 superconductor

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• Electronic Origin of the Inhomogeneous Pairing Interaction in the High-Tc Superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d
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• An Isotopic Fingerprint of Electron-Phonon Coupling in High-Tc Cuprates
• A distinct bosonic mode in an electron-doped high-transition-temperature superconductor
• Scanning tunneling spectroscopy of superconducting LiFeAs single crystals: Evidence for two nodeless energy gaps and coupling to a bosonic mode
• Preeminent role of the Van Hove singularity in the strong-coupling analysis of scanning tunneling spectroscopy for two-dimensional cuprates
• Influence of the pair coherence on the charge tunneling through a quantum dot connected to a superconducting lead
• Characteristics of oxygen isotope substitutions in the quasiparticle spectrum of Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_{8+\delta }$
• Density of States Modulations from Oxygen Phonons in d-wave Superconductors: Reconciling Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy and Scanning Tunneling Microscopy
• Evidence of a distinct collective mode in Kagome superconductors
• Scanning tunneling spectroscopy characterization of the pseudogap and the x = 1/8 anomaly in La2-xSrxCuO4 thin films
• Excitation of a bosonic mode by electron tunneling into a cuprate superconductor
• Impurity resonant state in d-wave superconductors: in favor of a Kondo-like response