Extinction of impurity resonances in large-gap regions of inhomogeneous d-wave superconductors

Abstract

Impurity resonances observed by scanning tunneling spectroscopy in the superconducting state have been used to deduce properties of the underlying pure state. Here we study a longstanding puzzle associated with these measurements, the apparent extinction of these resonances for Ni and Zn impurities in large-gap regions of the inhomogeneous BSCCO superconductor. We calculate the effect of order parameter and hopping suppression near the impurity site, and find that these two effects are sufficient to explain the missing resonances in the case of Ni. There are several possible scenarios for the extinction of the Zn resonances, which we discuss in turn; in addition, we propose measurements which could distinguish among them.