“We consider a planar superconducting–normal metal junction with both inelastic and spin-flip scattering processes present. …We use a one-dimensional formulation of the Usadel equation to compute the self-consistent energy dependence of the single-particle density of states as a function of distance from the interface on both the superconducting and metallic sides for various spatial profiles of a pair-breaking spin-flip term. The pair-breaking processes fill in the superconducting gap at zero energy, which is reflected in the zero-bias tunneling conductance in scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy experiments, in the vicinity of the junction.”

Find the paper and authors in Physical Review B.