Probing and dressing magnetic impurities in a superconductor

Abstract

We propose a method to probe and control the interactions between an ensemble of magnetic impurities in a superconductor via microwave radiation. Our method relies upon the presence of subgap Yu-Shiba-Rusinov (YSR) states associated with the impurities. Depending on the sign of the detuning, radiation generates either a ferro- or antiferromagnetic contribution to the exchange interaction. This contribution can bias the statistics of the random exchange constants stemming from the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interaction. Moreover, by measuring the microwave response at the YSR resonance, one gains information about the magnetic order of the impurities. To this end, we estimate the absorption coefficient as well as the achievable strength of the microwave-induced YSR interactions using off-resonant radiation. The ability to utilize microwave fields to both probe and control impurity spins in a superconducting host may open new paths to studying metallic spin glasses.