Cooper Pair Density of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+ x in Atomic scale at 4.2 K

Abstract

In pursuit of the elusive mechanism of high-TC superconductors (HTSC), spectroscopic imaging scanning tunneling microscopy (SI-STM) is an indispensable tool for surveying local properties of HTSC. Since a conventional STM utilizes metal tips, which allow the examination of only quasiparticles and not superconducting (SC) pairs, Josephson tunneling using STM has been demonstrated by many authors in the past. An atomically resolved scanning Josephson tunneling microscopy (SJTM), however, was realized only recently on Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x (Bi-2212) below 50 mK and on the Pb(110) surface at 20 mK. Here we report the atomically resolved SJTM on Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x at 4.2 K using Bi-2212 tips created in situ. The I-V characteristics show clear zero bias conductance peaks following Ambegaokar-Baratoff (AB) theory. A gap map was produced for the first time using an atomically resolved Josephson critical current map IC(r) and AB theory. Surprisingly, we found that this new gap map is anticorrelated to the gap map produced by a conventional method relying on the coherence peaks. Quasiparticle resonance due to a single isolated zinc atom impurity was also observed by SJTM, indicating that atomically resolved SJTM was achieved at 4.2 K. Our result provides a starting point for realizing SJTM at even higher temperatures, rendering possible investigation of the existence of SC pairs in HTSC above the TC. Copyright © 2019 American Chemical Society.