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STM Studies of Individual Ti Impurity Atoms in
Sr2RuO4
Barry Barker
Impurity atoms have long been known to
perturb the electronic state of the surrounding material, producing
well-known impurity bands, excess scattering, local electronic
impurity-states, etc. It has recently become possible to study impurity
states directly with high resolution scanning tunneling microscopy and
spectroscopy [1-3]. I will highlight some of the results obtained
studying high temperature superconductors with such a method, then go on
to describe the development of a next generation STM system to perform
such studies at temperatures below 100 mK and at fields up to 8.5
Tesla. I will then review the properties of Sr2RuO4,
an unconventional low temperature superconductor. New evidence gained
through use of the ULT-STM in studies of Ti-doped Sr2RuO4
indicates multiple gap structures in the density of states with
strong modifications near Ti atoms. I will close by discussing the
implications of these results in understanding the normal and
superconducting properties of Sr2RuO4.
1E.W.
Hudson et al., Science 285, 88 (1999).
2S.H.
Pan et al., Nature 403, 746 (2000).
3E.W.
Hudson et al., Nature 411, 920 (2001). |