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Register a new userTheory of quasiparticle scattering interference on the surface of topological superconductors
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Topological superconductors, such as noncentrosymmetric superconductors with strong spin-orbit coupling, exhibit protected zero-energy surface states, which possess an intricate helical spin structure. We show that this nontrival spin character of the surface states can be tested experimentally from the absence of certain backscattering processes in Fourier-transform scanning tunneling measurements. A detailed theoretical analysis is given of the quasiparticle scattering interference on the surface of both nodal and fully gapped topological superconductors with different crystal point-group symmetries. We determine the universal features in the interference patterns resulting from magnetic and nonmagnetic scattering processes of the surface quasiparticles. It is shown that Fourier-transform scanning tunneling spectroscopy allows us to uniquely distinguish among different types of topological surface states, such as zero-energy flat bands, arc surface states, and helical Majorana modes, which in turn provides valuable information on the spin and orbital pairing symmetry of the bulk superconducting state.
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Electrons on the surface of a strong topological insulator, such as Bi2Te3 or Bi1-xSnx, form a topologically protected helical liquid whose excitation spectrum contains an odd number of massless Dirac fermions. A theoretical survey and classification is given of the universal features, observable by the ordinary and spin-polarized scanning tunneling spectroscopy, in the interference patterns resulting from the quasiparticle scattering by magnetic and non-magnetic impurities in such a helical liquid. Our results confirm the absence of backscattering from non-magnetic impurities observed in recent experiments and predict new interference features, uniquely characteristic of the helical liquid, when the scatterers are magnetic.
The quasiparticle excitation is one of the most fundamental and ubiquitous physical observables in cuprate superconductors, carrying information about the bosonic glue forming electron pairs. Here the autocorrelation of the quasiparticle excitation spectral intensities in cuprate superconductors and its connection with the quasiparticle scattering interference are investigated based on the framework of the kinetic-energy driven superconducting mechanism by taking into account the pseudogap effect. It is shown that the octet scattering model of the quasiparticle scattering processes with the scattering wave vectors ${bf q}_{i}$ connecting the hot spots on the constant energy contours is intrinsically related to the emergence of the highly anisotropic momentum-dependence of the pseudogap. Concomitantly, the sharp peaks in the autocorrelation of the quasiparticle excitation spectral intensities with the wave vectors ${bf q}_{i}$ are directly correlated to the regions of the highest joint density of states. Moreover, the momentum-space structure of the autocorrelation patterns of the quasiparticle excitation spectral intensities is well consistent with the momentum-space structure of the quasiparticle scattering interference patterns observed from Fourier-transform scanning tunneling spectroscopy experiments. The theory therefore confirms an intimate connection between the angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy autocorrelation and quasiparticle scattering interference in cuprate superconductors.
We theoretically study the dependence of the quasiparticle (QP) scattering rate $varGamma$ on the uniaxial anisotropy of a Fermi surface with changing the magnetic field angle $alpha_{rm M}$. We consider the QP scattering due to the non-magnetic impurities inside a single vortex core. The field-angle dependence of the quasiparticle scattering rate $varGamma(alpha_{rm M})$ is sensitive to the sign-change of the pair potential. We show that with increasing the two dimensionality of the system, $varGamma(alpha_{rm M})$ reflects more clearly whether there is the sign-change in the pair potential.
The cuprate high-temperature superconductors are known to host a wide array of effects due to interactions and disorder. In this work, we look at some of the consequences of these effects which can be visualized by scanning tunneling spectroscopy. These interaction and disorder effects can be incorporated into a mean-field description by means of a self-energy appearing in the Greens function. We first examine the quasiparticle scattering interference spectra in the superconducting state at optimal doping as temperature is increased. Assuming agreement with angle-resolved photoemission experiments which suggest that the scattering rate depends on temperature, resulting in the filling of the $d$-wave gap, we find that the peaks predicted by the octet model become progressively smeared as temperature is increased. When the scattering rate is of the same order of magnitude as the superconducting gap, the spectral function shows Fermi-arc-like patterns, while the power spectrum of the local density of states shows the destruction of the octet-model peaks. We next consider the normal state properties of the optimally-doped cuprates. We model this by adding a marginal Fermi liquid self-energy to the normal-state propagator, and consider the dependence of the QPI spectra on frequency, temperature, and doping. We demonstrate that the MFL self-energy leads to a smearing of the caustics appearing in the normal-state QPI power spectrum as either temperature or frequency is increased at fixed doping. The smearing is found to be more prominent in the MFL case than in an ordinary Fermi liquid. We also consider the case of a marginal Fermi liquid with a strongly momentum-dependent self-energy which gives rise to a visible nodal-antinodal dichotomy at the normal state, and discuss how the spectra as seen in ARPES and STS differ from both an isotropic metal and a broadened $d$-wave superconductor.
Quasiparticle interference (QPI) provides a wealth of information relating to the electronic structure of a material. However, it is often assumed that this information is constrained to two-dimensional electronic states. Here, we show that this is not necessarily the case. For FeSe, a system dominated by surface defects, we show that it is actually all electronic states with negligible group velocity in the $z$ axis that are contained within the experimental data. By using a three-dimensional tight binding model of FeSe, fit to photoemission measurements, we directly reproduce the experimental QPI scattering dispersion, within a T-matrix formalism, by including both $k_z = 0$ and $k_z = pi$ electronic states. This result unifies both tunnelling and photoemission based experiments on FeSe and highlights the importance of $k_z$ within surface sensitive measurements of QPI.
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