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Spatial modulation of unitary impurity-induced resonances in superconducting CeCoIn5

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Abstract

Motivated by recent experimental progress in high-resolution scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) techniques, we investigate the local quasiparticle density of states around a unitary impurity in the heavy-fermion superconductor CeCoIn5. Based on the T-matrix approach we obtain a sharp nearly zero-energy resonance state in the strong impurity potential scattering localized around the impurity and find qualitative differences in the spatial pattern of the tunneling conductance modulated by the nodal structure of the superconducting gap. These unique features may be used as a probe of the superconducting gap symmetry and, in combination with further STM measurements, may help to confirm the \({d_{{x^2} - {y^2}}}\) pairing in CeCoIn5 at ambient pressure.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, 100044, China

    Ge Zhang & Bin Liu

  2. Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Yi-Feng Yang

  3. Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing, 100190, China

    Yi-Feng Yang

  4. Department of Physics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Shiping Feng

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  1. Ge Zhang
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Correspondence to Bin Liu.

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Zhang, G., Liu, B., Yang, YF. et al. Spatial modulation of unitary impurity-induced resonances in superconducting CeCoIn5 . Front. Phys. 11, 117402 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11467-016-0549-6

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