Preparation and electronic properties of clean superconducting Nb(110) surfaces

Abstract

We have studied cleaning procedures of Nb(110) by verifying the surface quality with low-energy electron diffraction, Auger electron spectroscopy, and scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. Our results show that the formation of a surface-near impurity depletion zone is inhibited by the very high diffusivity of oxygen in the Nb host crystal which kicks in at annealing temperatures as low as a few hundred degree Celsius. Oxygen can be removed from the surface by heating the crystal up to $T=2400{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}\mathrm{C}$. Tunneling spectra measured on the clean Nb(110) surface exhibit a sharp conductance peak in the occupied states at an energy of about $\ensuremath{-}450$ meV. Density functional theory calculations show that this peak is caused by a ${d}_{{z}^{2}}$ surface resonance band at the $\overline{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}}$ point of the Brillouin zone which provides a large density of states above the sample surface. The clean Nb(110) surface is superconducting with a gap width and a critical magnetic field strength in good agreement to the bulk value. In an external magnetic field we observe the Abrikosov lattice of flux quanta (vortices). Spatially resolved spectra show a zero-bias anomaly in the vortex core.