Publication Date:
2009-01-24
Description:
When electrons pair in a superconductor, quasi-particles develop an acute sensitivity to different types of scattering potential that is described by the appearance of coherence factors in the scattering amplitudes. Although the effects of coherence factors are well established in isotropic superconductors, they are much harder to detect in their anisotropic counterparts, such as high-superconducting-transition-temperature cuprates. We demonstrate an approach that highlights the momentum-dependent coherence factors in Ca2-xNaxCuO2Cl2. We used Fourier-transform scanning tunneling spectroscopy to reveal a magnetic-field dependence in quasi-particle scattering interference patterns that is sensitive to the sign of the anisotropic gap. This result is associated with the d-wave coherence factors and quasi-particle scattering off vortices. Our technique thus provides insights into the nature of electron pairing as well as quasi-particle scattering processes in unconventional superconductors.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Hanaguri, T -- Kohsaka, Y -- Ono, M -- Maltseva, M -- Coleman, P -- Yamada, I -- Azuma, M -- Takano, M -- Ohishi, K -- Takagi, H -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2009 Feb 13;323(5916):923-6. doi: 10.1126/science.1166138. Epub 2009 Jan 22.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Magnetic Materials Laboratory, RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, Wako 351-0198, Japan. hanaguri@riken.jp〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19164709" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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