PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

We demonstrate that in a d-wave superconductor the bulk nonlinear Meissner effect is dominated by a surface effect due to Andreev bound states at low temperatures. The contribution of this surface effect to the nonlinear response coefficient follows a 1/T(3) law with the opposite sign compared to the bulk 1/T behavior. The crossover from bulk dominated behavior to surface dominated behavior occurs at a temperature of T/T(c) similar to 1/root kappa. We present an approximate analytical calculation, which supports our numerical calculations and provides a qualitative understanding of the effect. The effect can be probed by intermodulation distortion experiments.