Scattering by impurity-induced order-parameter “holes” in d-wave superconductors

Matthias H. Hettler; P. J. Hirschfeld

doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.59.9606

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Scattering by impurity-induced order-parameter “holes” in d-wave superconductors

Matthias H. Hettler, P. J. Hirschfeld

DOI 10.1103/PhysRevB.59.9606 · Physical Review B

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Abstract

Nonmagnetic impurities in d-wave superconductors cause strong local suppressions of the order parameter. We investigate the observable effects of the scattering of such suppressions in bulk samples by treating the order parameter “hole” as a pointlike off-diagonal scatterer treated within a self-consistent t-matrix approximation. Strong scattering potentials lead to a finite-energy spectral feature in the d-wave “impurity band,” the observable effects of which include enhanced low-temperature microwave power absorption and a stronger sensitivity of the London penetration depth to disorder than found previously in simpler “dirty” d-wave models.