Correlation between modulation structure and electronic inhomogeneity on Pb-doped Bi-2212 single crystals

The correlation between nanometer-size electronic states and surface structure is investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/S) on Pb-doped Bi_2-xPb_xSr₂CaCu2O_8+y (Pb-Bi-2212) single crystals. The advantage of the Pb-Bi-2212 samples is that the modulation structure can be totally or locally suppressed depending on the Pb contents and annealing conditions. The superconducting gap (Δ) distribution on modulated Pb-Bi-2212 samples showed the lack of correlation with modulation structure except a slight reduction of superconducting island size for the b-axis direction. On the other hand, the optimal doped Pb-Bi-2212 (x = 0.6) samples obtained by reduced-annealing showed totally non-modulated structure in topography, however, the spatial distribution of Δ still showed inhomogeneity of which features were quite similar to those of modulated samples. These results suggest that the modulation structure is not the dominant origin of inhomogeneity although it modifies the streaky Δ structure sub-dominantly. From the gap structure variation around the border of narrow gap and broad gap regions, a trend of the coexistence of two separated phases i.e., superconducting phase and pseudogap like phase, is detected.