Quasiparticle state density on the surface of superconducting thin films of MgB₂

High-speed scanning tunnelling spectroscopy (STS) was used at low temperature to study the quasiparticle excitation spectrum on the surface of c-axis-oriented superconducting thin films of MgB₂. The tunnelling spectra measured on as-grown films were compared with those acquired on chemically etched samples. In most cases the STS reveals only one small superconducting gap to be present in the tunnelling spectra, consistent with c-axis tunnelling and the particular electronic band structure of MgB₂. We found that the etching leads to the enhancement of the gap energy by 25% from 2.2 ± 0.3 meV to 2.8 ± 0.3 meV, and to the modification of the temperature dependence of the superconducting gap which, in both cases, has clearly a non-BCS shape. We argue that the modification of the electronic structure at the surface of the material due to the etching is responsible for these changes and discuss the possible origins of the effect.