Magnetic impurity effects inAgMn,AuFe, andCuCr studied by tunneling in superconducting proximity layers

Magnetic interactions were studied by superconducting tunneling into diluteAgMn,AuFe, andCuCr alloys in which superconductivity had been induced by a proximity effect. A detailed investigation ofAgMn, for concentrations up to 0.4 at.% Mn and at temperatures down to 0.05 K, revealed a weak impurity band within the energy gap of the density of excited states at about 0.68 of the half energy gap . The amplitude of the band, however, was twenty times smaller than expected from the theory by Müller-Hartmann and Zittartz. This makes the interpretation of the effect as being due to bulkAgMn doubtful. The localisation of the band would imply a Kondo temperature,T_K, of about 1 mK for an impurity spinS=5/2. No effect of spin-glass ordering was seen in the temperature dependence of the tunneling density of states inAgMn which contradicts a report by Schuller et al. The zero bias conductance could instead be reproduced from low temperature measurements if the temperature variation in was taken into account. InCuCr, the shape of the impurity band was found to be temperature dependent. The location of an impurity band at about 0.68 inAuFe indicates. together with previous observations, the presence of two impurity bands in this alloy. The one found here, might be due to long-range Fe pairs.