Hyperbolic Fringe Signal for Twin Impurity Quasiparticle Interference

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Hyperbolic Fringe Signal for Twin Impurity Quasiparticle Interference

Peize Ding, Tilman Schwemmer, Ching Hua Lee, Xianxin Wu, and Ronny Thomale

Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 256001 – Published 21 June 2023

Abstract

We study the quasiparticle interference (QPI) pattern emanating from a pair of adjacent impurities on the surface of a gapped superconductor (SC). We find that hyperbolic fringes (HFs) in the QPI signal can appear due to the loop contribution of the two-impurity scattering, where the locations of the two impurities are the hyperbolic focus points. For a single pocket Fermiology, a HF pattern signals chiral SC order for nonmagnetic impurities and requires magnetic impurities for a nonchiral SC. For a multipocket scenario, a sign-changing order parameter such as an $s_{\pm}$ wave likewise yields a HF signature. We discuss twin impurity QPI as a new tool to complement the analysis of superconducting order from local spectroscopy.

Received 5 July 2022
Revised 31 October 2022
Accepted 17 May 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.256001

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Impurities in superconductors Point defects Superconducting gap Superconducting order parameter

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Peize Ding ^1,2,3,*, Tilman Schwemmer ¹, Ching Hua Lee ^4,5, Xianxin Wu^6,†, and Ronny Thomale ^1,‡

¹Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, D-97074 Würzburg, Germany
²School of the Gifted Young, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
³Department of Physics, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA
⁴Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 117542
⁵Joint School of National University of Singapore and Tianjin University, International Campus of Tianjin University, Binhai New City, Fuzhou 350207, China
⁶CAS Key Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China

^*pd2714@columbia.edu
^†xxwu@itp.ac.cn
^‡rthomale@physik.uni-wuerzburg.de

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Issue

Vol. 130, Iss. 25 — 23 June 2023

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