How can one use real space imaging to obtain k-space information of the electronic states in a material? Our preprint on quasiparticle interference imaging of strongly correlated and 2D materials summarises the state of the art in theory and experiment and is an attempt at a comprehensive review. Great collaboration across continents, with contributions from Luke Rhodes, Yuhki Kohsaka, Tetsuo Hanaguri, and Carolina Marques.
Loop currents have been proposed as the origin of the pseudogap phase in the cuprate high-temperature superconductors, have been connected to the CDW phase of Kagome materials and proposed to occur at the surface layer of Sr2RuO4. These loop currents are extremely hard to detect, as they produce only tiny local magnetic fields. STM, being a local experimental technique, has been proposed as a way to detect them. In our recent preprint, we make realistic predictions for the signatures that loop currents would create in an STM experiment. Using our calcQPI code, we show that loop currents, in the presence of spin-orbit coupling, give rise to a spin polarization with a large enough signal to be detected by spin-polarized STM.
Congratulations to Daniel Halliday for his PhD thesis on “Surface structure of the ruthenium oxides: correlating atomic displacements with electronic structure” and graduation earlier this month!
