Particle-wave duality suggests we think of electrons as waves stretched across a sample, with wavevector k proportional to their momentum. Their arrangement in k-space, and in particular the shape of the Fermi surface, where the highest energy electr
ons of the system reside, determine many material properties. Here we use a novel extension of Fourier transform scanning tunneling microscopy to probe the Fermi surface of the strongly inhomogeneous Bi-based cuprate superconductors. Surprisingly, we find that rather than being globally defined, the Fermi surface changes on nanometer length scales. Just as shifting tide lines expose variations of water height, changing Fermi surfaces indicate strong local doping variations. This discovery, unprecedented in any material, paves the way for an understanding of other inhomogeneous characteristics of the cuprates, like the pseudogap magnitude, and highlights a new approach to the study of nanoscale inhomogeneity in general.
The discovery of high temperature superconductivity in La[O1-xFx]FeAs at the beginning of this year [1] has generated much excitement and has led to the rapid discovery of similar compounds with as high as 55 K transition temperatures [2]. The high s
uperconducting transition temperatures are seemingly incompatible with the electron-phonon driven pairing of conventional superconductors, resulting in wide speculation as to the mechanism and nature of the superconductivity in these materials. Here we report results of the first scanning tunneling microscopy study of the 32 K superconductor (Sr1-xKx)Fe2As2. We find two distinct topographic regions on the sample, one with no apparent atomic corrugation, and another marked by a stripe-like modulation at double the atomic periodicity. In the latter the stripes appear to modulate the local density of states, occasionally revealing a Delta = 10 mV gap with a shape consistent with unconventional (non-s wave) superconductivity.
One of the main challenges in understanding high TC superconductivity is to disentangle the rich variety of states of matter that may coexist, cooperate, or compete with d-wave superconductivity. At center stage is the pseudogap phase, which occupies
a large portion of the cuprate phase diagram surrounding the superconducting dome [1]. Using scanning tunneling microscopy, we find that a static, non-dispersive, checkerboard-like electronic modulation exists in a broad regime of the cuprate phase diagram and exhibits strong doping dependence. The continuous increase of checkerboard periodicity with hole density strongly suggests that the checkerboard originates from charge density wave formation in the anti-nodal region of the cuprate Fermi surface. These results reveal a coherent picture for static electronic orderings in the cuprates and shed important new light on the nature of the pseudogap phase.
The nature of the pseudogap state, observed above the superconducting transition temperature TC in many high temperature superconductors, is the center of much debate. Recently, this discussion has focused on the number of energy gaps in these materi
als. Some experiments indicate a single energy gap, implying that the pseudogap is a precursor state. Others indicate two, suggesting that it is a competing or coexisting phase. Here we report on temperature dependent scanning tunneling spectroscopy of Pb-Bi2Sr2CuO6+x. We have found a new, narrow, homogeneous gap that vanishes near TC, superimposed on the typically observed, inhomogeneous, broad gap, which is only weakly temperature dependent. These results not only support the two gap picture, but also explain previously troubling differences between scanning tunneling microscopy and other experimental measurements.
