Quasi-Particle density of states and Thouless conductance of disordered d-wave superconductors

Abstract

We present a numerical study of the quasi-particle density of states (DoS) of two-dimensional d-wave superconductors in the presence of disorder, focusing on the influence of the range of the disorder. We find qualitatively different behavior for smooth and short-ranged disorder. In the former case, we find power law scaling of the DoS with an exponent depending on the strength of the disorder and the superconducting order parameter in quantitative agreement with the theory of Nersesyan {\em et al.}. For strong disorder, a qualitative change to an energy independent DoS occurs. In contrast, for short-ranged disorder of sufficient strength, we find localization by analyzing the system size dependence of the Thouless numbers. Near zero energy we find a micro gap in the DoS. The width of this micro gap is given by the mean level spacing of a localization volume. From the system size and disorder dependence of the width of the micro gap we derive the dependence of the localization length on the disorder strength.