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Science 2 July 1999:
Vol. 285. no. 5424, pp. 88 - 91
DOI: 10.1126/science.285.5424.88
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Reports

Atomic-Scale Quasi-Particle Scattering Resonances in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta

E. W. Hudson, 1 S. H. Pan, 1* A. K. Gupta, 2 K.-W. Ng, 2 J. C. Davis 1dagger

Low-temperature scanning tunneling spectroscopy of the high transition temperature (high-Tc) cuprate Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta reveals the existence of large numbers of identical regions with diameters of about 3 nanometers that have a relatively high density of low-energy quasi-particle states. Their spatial and spectroscopic characteristics are consistent with theories of strong quasi-particle scattering from atomic-scale impurities in a d-wave superconductor. These characteristics include breaking of local particle-hole symmetry, a diameter near twice the superconducting coherence length, and an inverse square dependence of their local density-of-states on distance from the scattering center. In addition to the validation of d-wave quasi-particle scattering theories, these observations identify a source for the anomalously high levels of low-energy quasi-particles in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta at low temperatures.

1 Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720-7300, USA.
2 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0055, USA.
*   Present address: Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, MA, 02215, USA.

dagger    To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jcdavis{at}socrates.berkeley.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Signature of Superfluid Density in the Single-Particle Excitation Spectrum of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta.
D. L. Feng, D. H. Lu, K. M. Shen, C. Kim, H. Eisaki, A. Damascelli, R. Yoshizaki, J.-i. Shimoyama, K. Kishio, G. D. Gu, et al. (2000)
Science 289, 277-281
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