Local Electronic Structure of Defects in Superconductors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel self-consistent method to analyze the atomic-scale electronic structure near defects in superconductors, accounting for various impurity types and order parameter modifications, with high spectral resolution.

Contribution

It presents a new technique exploiting the short-range impurity potential and order parameter changes to achieve atomic-scale spectral analysis of defects in superconductors.

Findings

Effective analysis of magnetic and non-magnetic impurities.

Extension to strong-coupling and anisotropic superconductors.

High-resolution spectral features near defects.

Abstract

The electronic structure near defects (such as impurities) in superconductors is explored using a new, fully self-consistent technique. This technique exploits the short-range nature of the impurity potential and the induced change in the superconducting order parameter to calculate features in the electronic structure down to the atomic scale with unprecedented spectral resolution. Magnetic and non-magnetic static impurity potentials are considered, as well as local alterations in the pairing interaction. Extensions to strong-coupling superconductors and superconductors with anisotropic order parameters are formulated.