Litcius/Paper detail

Spatially dispersing Yu-Shiba-Rusinov states in the unconventional superconductor FeTe0.55Se0.45

Damianos Chatzopoulos, Doohee Cho, Koen M. Bastiaans, Gorm O. Steffensen, Damian Bouwmeester, Alireza Akbari, Genda Gu, Jens Paaske, Brian M. Andersen, Milan P. Allan

2021Nature Communications34 citationsDOIOpen Access PDF

Abstract

Abstract By using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) we find and characterize dispersive, energy-symmetric in-gap states in the iron-based superconductor FeTe 0.55 Se 0.45 , a material that exhibits signatures of topological superconductivity, and Majorana bound states at vortex cores or at impurity locations. We use a superconducting STM tip for enhanced energy resolution, which enables us to show that impurity states can be tuned through the Fermi level with varying tip-sample distance. We find that the impurity state is of the Yu-Shiba-Rusinov (YSR) type, and argue that the energy shift is caused by the low superfluid density in FeTe 0.55 Se 0.45 , which allows the electric field of the tip to slightly penetrate the sample. We model the newly introduced tip-gating scenario within the single-impurity Anderson model and find good agreement to the experimental data.

Topics & Concepts

Condensed matter physicsSuperconductivityBound stateScanning tunneling microscopeMAJORANASuperfluidityPhysicsQuantum tunnellingImpurityLocal density of statesVortexDensity of statesFermi energyElectric fieldFermi levelScanning tunneling spectroscopyField (mathematics)Fermi Gamma-ray Space TelescopeEnergy (signal processing)Vortex stateMaterials scienceAnderson impurity modelTunnel effectMagnetic fieldMagnetic impurityState (computer science)Critical fieldIron-based superconductors researchTopological Materials and PhenomenaRare-earth and actinide compounds