MIXED-STATE QUASI-PARTICLE SPECTRUM FOR D-WAVE SUPERCONDUCTORS

Controversy concerning the pairing symmetry of high-T-c materials has motivated an interest in those measurable properties of superconductors for which qualitative differences exist between the s-wave and d-wave cases. We report on a comparison between the microscopic electronic properties of d-wave and s-wave superconductors in the mixed state. Our study is based on self-consistent numerical solutions of the mean-field Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations for phenomenological BCS models which have s-wave and d-wave condensates in the absence of a magnetic field. We discuss differences between the s-wave and the d-wave local density of states, both near and away from vortex cores. Experimental implications for both scanning-tunneling-microscopy measurements and specific-heat measurements are discussed.