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The Energy-dependent Checkerboard Patterns in Cuprate Superconductors

Degang Zhang·C. S. Ting
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Abstract

Motivated by the recent scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments [J. E. Hoffman {\it et al.}, Science {\bf 297}, 1148 (2002); K. McElroy {\it et al.}, Nature (to be published)], we investigate the real space local density of states (LDOS) induced by weak disorder in a d-wave superconductor. We first present the energy dependent LDOS images around a single weak defect at several energies, and then point out that the experimentally observed checkerboard pattern in the LDOS could be understood as a result of quasiparticle interferences by randomly distributed defects. It is also shown that the checkerboard pattern oriented along $45^0$ to the Cu-O bonds at low energies would transform to that oriented parallel to the Cu-O bonds at higher energies. This result is consistent with the experiments.

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Degang Zhang, C. S. Ting. 2003-04-08. The Energy-dependent Checkerboard Patterns in Cuprate Superconductors. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.69.012501

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