Asymptotic behavior of impurity-induced bound states in low-dimensional topological superconductors

Vardan Kaladzhyan (1, 2) , Cristina Bena (1, 2) , Pascal Simon (2)

1 IPHT - Institut de Physique Théorique - UMR CNRS 3681
2 LPS - Laboratoire de Physique des Solides

We study theoretically the asymptotic behavior of the Shiba bound states associated with magnetic impurities embedded in both 2D and 1D anomalous superconductors. We calculate analytically the spatial dependence of the local density of states together with the spin polarization associated with the Shiba bound states. We show that the latter quantity exhibits drastic differences between s-wave and different types of p-wave superconductors. Such properties, which could be measured using spin-polarized STM, offer therefore a way to discriminate between singlet and triplet pairing in low-dimensional superconductors, as well as a way to estimate the amplitude of the triplet pairing in these systems.

Keywords: unconventional superconductor; Shiba states; localized impurity

Domains: Superconductivity [cond-mat.supr-con]

Vardan Kaladzhyan, Cristina Bena, Pascal Simon. Asymptotic behavior of impurity-induced bound states in low-dimensional topological superconductors. Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 2016, 28, pp.485701. ⟨10.1088/0953-8984/28/48/485701⟩. ⟨cea-01495222⟩