Vortex contribution to specific heat of dirty d-wave superconductors: Breakdown of scaling

We consider the problem of the vortex contribution to thermal properties of dirty d-wave superconductors. In the clean limit, the main contribution to the density of states in a d-wave superconductor arises from extended quasiparticle states which may be treated semiclassically, giving rise to a specific heat contribution delta C(H) similar to H-1/2. We show that the extended states continue to dominate the dirty limit, but lead to a H log H behavior at the lowest fields, H-c1 less than or similar to H much less than H-c2. This crossover may explain recent discrepancies in specific heat measurements at low temperatures and fields in the cuprate superconductors. We discuss the range of validity of recent predictions of scaling with H-1/2/T in real samples. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.