Ultrasonic attenuation in inhomogeneous superconductors

Abstract

Subgap bound states can produce pronounced features in the density of states without necessarily giving rise to a corresponding signal in ultrasonic attenuation. We show that the coherence factors act as a filter for the contribution of bound states to ultrasonic attenuation. In a phase-biased superconductor--normal--superconductor junction, the Andreev bound states produce a resonance in the attenuation when the phonon frequency matches the phase-dependent separation between the subgap levels. The situation is different at a $(110)$ grain boundary in a $d_{x^2-y^2}$ superconductor. There, nonmagnetic impurity-induced bound states remain weak in the attenuation despite their large spectral weight, because the relevant coherence factors nearly cancel. When local magnetism develops near the boundary, this cancellation is removed, the bound states become spin split, and a clear attenuation peak appears, which we argue is governed by a process involving emission of phonons by pair of quasiparticles at low temperatures. We obtain these results using a real-space Bogoliubov--de Gennes formulation of ultrasonic attenuation and benchmark the method against the known low-temperature behavior of homogeneous $s$- and $d$-wave superconductors. The results show that ultrasound can distinguish bound states with similar spectral signatures but different symmetry and spin structure.