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A momentum-dependent perspective on quasiparticle interference in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ

Nature Physics volume 5, pages 718–721 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) probes the momentum-space electronic structure of materials and provides invaluable information about the high-temperature superconducting cuprates1. Likewise, scanning tunnelling spectroscopy (STS) reveals the cuprates’ real-space inhomogeneous electronic structure. Recently, researchers using STS have exploited quasiparticle interference (QPI)—wave-like electrons that scatter off impurities to produce periodic interference patterns—to infer properties of the quasiparticles in momentum space. Surprisingly, some interference peaks in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ (Bi-2212) are absent beyond the antiferromagnetic zone boundary, implying the dominance of a particular scattering process2. Here, we show that ARPES detects no evidence of quasiparticle extinction: quasiparticle-like peaks are measured everywhere on the Fermi surface, evolving smoothly across the antiferromagnetic zone boundary. This apparent contradiction stems from differences in the nature of single-particle (ARPES) and two-particle (STS) processes underlying these probes. Using a simple model, we demonstrate extinction of QPI without implying the loss of quasiparticles beyond the antiferromagnetic zone boundary.

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Figure 1: Quasiparticles in ARPES data.
Figure 2: Scattering-rate fits.
Figure 3: Patch calculation.

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Acknowledgements

We thank N. Nagaosa and J. Zaanen for helpful discussions. SSRL is operated by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Science, Division of Chemical Science and Material Science. This work is supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Division of Materials Science, with contracts DE-AC02-76SF00515, DE-FG03-01ER45929-A001 and NSF grant DMR-0604701.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA

    I. M. Vishik, E. A. Nowadnick, W. S. Lee, Z. X. Shen, B. Moritz & T. P. Devereaux

  2. Departments of Physics and Applied Physics, Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Stanford University, California 94305, USA

    I. M. Vishik, E. A. Nowadnick, W. S. Lee & Z. X. Shen

  3. Department of Physics, Osaka University, Osaka, 560-0043, Japan

    K. Tanaka

  4. Materials and Structures Laboratory, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama-City, 226-8503, Japan

    T. Sasagawa

  5. Cryogenic Center, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 113-0032, Japan

    T. Fujii

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  1. I. M. Vishik
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  2. E. A. Nowadnick
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Contributions

I.M.V. analysed ARPES data and wrote the portions of the manuscript and Supplementary Information relevant to ARPES results. W.-S.L. carried out ARPES experiments on samples grown by T.S. and K.T. carried out experiments on samples grown by T.F. B.M. and E.A.N. wrote and modified the computer codes and carried out the computational simulations. T.P.D., B.M. and E.A.N. wrote and edited those portions of the main text and Supplementary Information relevant to the simulations. T.P.D. and Z.-X.S. are responsible for project direction, planning and infrastructure.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to T. P. Devereaux.

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Vishik, I., Nowadnick, E., Lee, W. et al. A momentum-dependent perspective on quasiparticle interference in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ. Nature Phys 5, 718–721 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1375

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