No Arabic abstract
Since the discovery of high transition-temperature (Tc) superconductivity in copper oxides two decades ago, continuous efforts have been devoted to searching for similar phenomenon in other compounds. With the exception of MgB2 (Tc =39 K), however, Tc is generally far lower than desired. Recently, breakthrough has been made in a new class of oxypnictide compounds. Following the initial discovery of superconductivity in LaO1-x FxFeAs (Tc =26 K), Tc onset has been raised to 55 K in ReO1-xFxFeAs (Re: Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm). Meanwhile, unravelling the nature of the energy associated with the formation of current-carrying pairs (Cooper pairs), referred to as the superconducting energy gap, is the first and vital step towards understanding why the superconductivity occurs at such high temperature and is also important for finding superconductors with still higher Tc. Here we show that, on the basis of the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements in PrO0.89F0.11FeAs (Tc =45 K), the Cooper pair is in the spin-singlet state (two spins are anti-paralleled), with two energy gaps opening below Tc. The results strongly suggest the existence of nodes (zeros) in the gap. None of superconductors known to date has such unique gap features, although copper-oxides and MgB2 share part of them.
We report the observation of two gaps in the superconductor SmFeAsO$_{0.9}$F$_{0.1}$ (F-SmFeAsO) with $T_c=51.5K$ as measured by point-contact spectroscopy. Both gaps decrease with temperature and vanish at $T_c$ and the temperature dependence of the gaps are described by the theoretical prediction of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory. A zero-bias conductance peak (ZBCP) was observed, indicating the presence of Andreev bound states at the surface of F-SmFeAsO. Our results strongly suggest an unconventional nodal superconductivity with multiple gaps in F-SmFeAsO.
Superconductivity is observed with critical temperatures near 9K in the tetragonal compound Mo5PB2. This material adopts the Cr5B3 structure type common to supercondcuting Nb5Si3-xBx, Mo5SiB2, and W5SiB2, which have critical temperatures of 5.8-7.8 K. We have synthesized polycrystalline samples of the compound, made measurements of electrical resistivity, magnetic susceptibility, and heat capacity, and performed first principles electronic structure calculations. The highest Tc value (9.2 K) occurs in slightly phosphorus rich samples, with composition near Mo5P1.1B1.9, and the upper critical field Hc2 at T = 0 is estimated to be about 17 kOe. Together, the measurements and band structure calculations indicate intermediate coupling (lambda = 1.0), phonon mediated superconductivity. The temperature dependence of the heat capacity and upper critical field Hc2 below Tc suggest multiple superconducting gaps may be present.
We report the first ^{75}As-NMR study on a single crystal of the hole-doped iron-pnictide superconductor Ba_{0.7}K_{0.3}Fe_2As_{2} (T_c = 31.5 K). We find that the Fe antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations are anisotropic and are weaker compared to underdoped copper-oxides or cobalt-oxide superconductors. The spin lattice relaxation rate 1/T_1 decreases below T_c with no coherence peak and shows a step-wise variation at low temperatures, which is indicative of multiple superconducting gaps, as in the electron-doped Pr(La)FeAsO$_{1-x}$F$_{x}$. Furthermore, no evidence was obtained for a microscopic coexistence of a long-range magnetic and superconductivity.
Recent experiments in multiband Fe-based and heavy-fermion superconductors have challenged the long-held dichotomy between simple $s$- and $d$-wave spin-singlet pairing states. Here, we advance several time-reversal-invariant irreducible pairings that go beyond the standard singlet functions through a matrix structure in the band/orbital space, and elucidate their naturalness in multiband systems. We consider the $stau_{3}$ multiorbital superconducting state for Fe-chalcogenide superconductors. This state, corresponding to a $d+d$ intra- and inter-band pairing, is shown to contrast with the more familiar $d +text{i}d$ state in a way analogous to how the B- triplet pairing phase of enhe superfluid differs from its A- phase counterpart. In addition, we construct an analogue of the $stau_{3}$ pairing for the heavy-fermion superconductor CeCu$_{2}$Si$_{2}$, using degrees-of-freedom that incorporate spin-orbit coupling. Our results lead to the proposition that $d$-wave superconductors in correlated multiband systems will generically have a fully-gapped Fermi surface when they are examined at sufficiently low energies.
We study the spin resonance in superconducting state of iron-based materials within multiband models with two unequal gaps, $Delta_L$ and $Delta_S$, on different Fermi surface pockets. We show that due to the indirect nature of the gap entering the spin susceptibility at the nesting wave vector $mathbf{Q}$ the total gap $tildeDelta$ in the bare susceptibility is determined by the sum of gaps on two different Fermi surface sheets connected by $mathbf{Q}$. For the Fermi surface geometry characteristic to the most of iron pnictides and chalcogenides, the indirect gap is either $tildeDelta = Delta_L + Delta_S$ or $tildeDelta = 2Delta_L$. In the $s_{++}$ state, spin excitations below $tildeDelta$ are absent unless additional scattering mechanisms are assumed. The spin resonance appears in the $s_pm$ superconducting state at frequency $omega_R leq tildeDelta$. Comparison with available inelastic neutron scattering data confirms that what is seen is the true spin resonance and not a peak inherent to the $s_{++}$ state.