Infrared nanospectroscopy and imaging of collective superfluid excitations in anisotropic superconductors

H. T. Stinson, J. S. Wu, B. Y. Jiang, Z. Fei, A. S. Rodin, B. C. Chapler, A. S. McLeod, A. Castro Neto, Y. S. Lee, M. M. Fogler, D. N. Basov

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35 Scopus citations

Abstract

We investigate near-field infrared spectroscopy and superfluid polariton imaging experiments on conventional and unconventional superconductors. Our modeling shows that near-field spectroscopy can measure the magnitude of the superconducting energy gap in Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer-like superconductors with nanoscale spatial resolution. We demonstrate how the same technique can measure the c-axis plasma frequency, and thus the c-axis superfluid density, of layered unconventional superconductors with a similar spatial resolution. Our modeling also shows that near-field techniques can image superfluid surface mode interference patterns near physical and electronic boundaries. We describe how these images can be used to extract the collective mode dispersion of anisotropic superconductors with subdiffractional spatial resolution.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number014502
JournalPhysical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics
Volume90
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 8 2014
Externally publishedYes

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