Detection and control of broken symmetries with Andreev bound state tunneling spectroscopy: effects of atomic-scale disorder

Quasiparticle planar tunneling spectroscopy is used to study unconventional superconductivity in YBa2Cu3O7 (YBCO) thin films and BiSr2CaCu2O8 (BSCCO) single crystals. Tunneling conductances are obtained as a function of crystallographic orientation, applied magnetic field (magnitude and orientation), atomic substitution and surface damage. Our systematic studies confirm that the observed zero-bias conductance peak (ZBCP), a measure of the near-surface quasiparticle (QP) density of states (DoS), is comprised of Andreev bound states (ABS) resulting directly from the sign change of the d-wave order parameter (OP) at the Fermi surface. Our data, plus a literature search, reveals a consistency in the observation of the splitting of the ZBCP in optimally-doped materials. We note that the splitting of the ZBCP observed in applied field, and the spontaneous splitting observed at lower temperatures in zero field, occur concomitantly in a given junction, and that observation of this splitting is dependent upon two parameters: (1) the magnitude of the tunneling cone and (2) the degree of atomic-scale disorder at the interface. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.