Tunneling spectroscopy and high electrical resistivity in quasicrystalline alloys

Abstract

We report on a scanning tunneling spectroscopy investigation at low temperature on oxidized surfaces of highly resistive icosahedral AlPdMn, AlCuFe and AlPdRe phases. The tunneling conductance is found to vary significantly as a function of the scanning tunneling microscope tip location on the surface. A common feature of our quasicrystalline samples is the presence of a zero bias dip, with square root voltage dependence from 5 mV to 300 mV. This is indicative that the one electron density of states has a square root singularity at the Fermi level. More generally, we discuss how tunneling spectroscopy can be used to determine the electronic density of states and its limitation for our quasicrystalline alloys.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge T. Grenet and F. Giroud for providing the i-AlCuFe thin films, G. Fourcaudot and J.C. Grieco for their support in the preparation of the i-AlPdRe ribbons, and Y. Calvayrac for the i-AlPdMn single grain.