Modulations of the local pairing interaction near magnetic impurities in d-wave superconductors

TL;DR

This paper investigates how magnetic impurities affect local pairing interactions in d-wave superconductors, revealing that Coulomb-driven pairing causes unique local superconducting gap modulations.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of local pairing interaction modulations near magnetic impurities, highlighting the effects of Coulomb-driven pairing mechanisms.

Findings

Local antiferromagnetism is enhanced near impurities

Superconducting gap shows distinct local modulations

Coulomb-driven pairing causes unusual gap variations

Abstract

The spin-fluctuation based pairing mechanism has proven successful in explaining the pairing symmetries due to Fermi surface nesting of both cuprates and iron-based materials. In this work, we study signatures of a spin-fluctuation mediated pairing at the local scale. Specifically, we focus on magnetic impurities and calculate both the local antiferromagnetism and the resulting modulated pairing interaction. The latter gives rise to distinct local enhancements of the superconducting gap in the immediate vicinity of the impurities. Our results show that Coulomb-driven pairing naturally leads to unusual superconducting gap modulations near disorder potentials.