Pair excitations of a quantum spin on a proximitized superconductor

TL;DR

This study reveals how tunneling electrons can induce pair-breaking excitations in magnetic impurities on proximitized superconductors, providing insights into their quantum behavior and serving as parity detectors.

Contribution

It demonstrates the observation of pair excitations in tunneling spectra of magnetic impurities on a proximitized superconductor, a phenomenon previously hidden.

Findings

Pair excitations appear as peaks outside the superconducting gap.

These excitations scale with the pair correlation strength.

They serve as parity detectors for magnetic impurities.

Abstract

A magnetic impurity interacting with a superconductor develops a rich excitation spectrum formed by superposition of quasiparticles and spin states, which appear as Yu-Shiba-Rusinov and spin-flip excitations in tunneling spectra. Here, we show that tunneling electrons can also excite a superconducting pair-breaking transition in the presence of magnetic impurities, which is hidden for electrons on bare superconductors. Combining scanning tunneling spectroscopy with theoretical modeling, we map the excitation spectrum of a Fe-porphyrin molecule on the Au/V(100) proximitized surface into a manifold of many-body excitations and follow their behavior across a parity-changing transition. Pair excitations emerge in the tunneling spectra as peaks outside the gap in the strong interaction regime, scaling with the pair correlation. Our results unravel the quantum nature of magnetic impurities on superconductors and prove that pair excitations are parity detectors for magnetic impurities.