Vortex core shapes measured by STM

Abstract

We have studied vortex core shapes in superconducting NbSe2 by STM, as function of temperature and bias voltage. The experimentally measured tunnel current profiles are compared with the results of calculations using microscopic theory. We find that, at low temperatures (T/T c ≃ 0.25), the apparent vortex core radius strongly depends on the bias voltage, which demonstrates the energy dependence of the scale for spatial variation of the quasiparticle density of states. Good quantitative agreement between measured and calculated profiles is found by using the accepted value for the superconducting coherence length ΞS, without further adjustable parameters. This shows that the bias dependence is a useful extra tool in the interpretation of local density of states measurements.