Scanning tunneling spectroscopy of high-temperature superconductors

Abstract

Tunneling spectroscopy played a central role in the experimental verification of the microscopic theory of superconductivity in the classical superconductors. Initial attempts to apply the same approach to high-temperature superconductors were hampered by various problems related to the complexity of these materials. The use of scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS) on these compounds allowed to overcome the main difficulties. This success motivated a rapidly growing scientific community to apply this technique to high-temperature superconductors. This paper reviews the experimental highlights obtained over the last decade. We first recall the crucial efforts to gain control over the technique and to obtain reproducible results. We then discuss how the STM/STS technique has contributed to the study of some of the most unusual and remarkable properties of high-temperature superconductors: the unusual large gap values and the absence of scaling with the critical temperature; the pseudogap and its relation to superconductivity; the unprecedented small size of the vortex cores and its influence on vortex matter; the unexpected electronic properties of the vortex cores; the combination of atomic resolution and spectroscopy leading to the observation of periodic local density of states modulations in the superconducting and pseudogap states, and in the vortex cores.

To appear in RMP; 65 pages, 62 figures

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• Vortex Imaging in the pi-Band of Magnesium Diboride
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• STM/STS Study on 4a X 4a Electronic Charge Order of Superconducting Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d
• Subharmonic gap structure in superconducting scanning tunneling microscope junctions
• Crystalline electron pairs
• Josephson Effect in Pb/I/NbSe2 Scanning Tunneling Microscope Junctions
• Impurity induced low-energy resonances in Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+delta}
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Cited by in corpus (35)

• How Cooper pairs vanish approaching the Mott insulator in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d
• The BCS-like gap in superconductor SmFeAsO_0.85F_0.15
• Phase controlled superconducting proximity effect probed by tunneling spectroscopy
• Evolution of the electronic excitation spectrum with strongly diminishing hole-density in superconducting Bi_{2}Sr_{2}CaCu_{2}O_{8+δ}
• Pseudogap opening and formation of Fermi arcs as an orbital-selective Mott transition in momentum space
• Nanoscale superconducting gap variations, strong coupling signatures and lack of phase separation in optimally doped BaFe1.86Co0.14As2
• Scanning tunnelling microscopy for ultracold atoms
• Valence-Bond Dynamical Mean-Field Theory of Doped Mott Insulators with Nodal/Antinodal Differentiation
• Emergence of Cooper pairs, d-wave duality and the phase diagram of cuprate superconductors
• Preeminent role of the Van Hove singularity in the strong-coupling analysis of scanning tunneling spectroscopy for two-dimensional cuprates
• Nodeless spin triplet superconducting gap in Sr2RuO4
• Model for nodal quasiparticle scattering in a disordered vortex lattice
• Influence of the pair coherence on the charge tunneling through a quantum dot connected to a superconducting lead
• Scanning tunneling spectroscopy with superconducting tips of Al
• Fidelity and superconductivity in two-dimensional t-J models
• Doping Dependence of Two Energy Scales in the Tunneling Spectra of Superconducting La${}_{2-x}$Sr${}_x$CuO${}_4$
• Effect of dopant atoms on local superexchange in cuprate superconductors: a perturbative treatment
• Long range crossed Andreev reflections in high Tc superconductors
• Competing orders and the doping and momentum dependent quasiparticle excitations in cuprate superconductors
• Flux Periodicities in Loops of Nodal Superconductors
• Anomaly in the heat capacity of Kondo superconductors
• Scanning tunneling spectroscopic evidence for magnetic field-induced microscopic orders in the high-$T_c$ superconductor YBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_{7-\delta }$
• Scanning tunneling microscopy of the 32 K superconductor (Sr1-xKx)Fe2As2
• Andreev bound states at a cuprate grain boundary junction: A lower bound for the upper critical field
• ARPES, Neutrons, and the High-$T_c$ Mechanism
• Effects of Strong Correlations and Disorder in d-Wave Superconductors
• Sublattice model of atomic scale pairing inhomogeneity in a superconductor
• Possible Competing Order-Induced Fermi Arcs in Cuprate Superconductors
• Gap opening with ordering in PrFe4P12 studied by local tunneling spectroscopy
• $T_c$ Dependence of Energy Gap and Asymmetry of Coherence Peaks in NdBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_{7-\delta }$
• Strong-coupling Superconductivity in the Cuprate Oxide
• Energy gaps in high-$T_c$ superconductors: BCS after all?
• Charge modulation driven Fermi surface of Pb-Bi2201
• Many-body calculation of the spatial extent of the wave-function of a non-magnetic impurity in a d-wave high-temperature superconductor using the t--J model
• Concerning two-gap ARPES data, the pseudogap, 2-q striping and magnetc circular dichroism from the negative-U HTSC perspective