No Arabic abstract
We investigated the recently found superconductor LaO_{1-x}F_xFeAs by X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS). From a comparison of the O K-edge with LDA calculations we find good agreement and are able to explain the structure and changes of the spectra with electron doping. An important result from this edge is a limitation of the Hubbard U to values not significantly larger than 1 eV. From experimental Fe L_2,3-edge spectra and charge transfer multiplet calculations we gain further information on important physical values such as hopping parameters, the charge transfer energy Delta, and the on-site Hubbard U. Furthermore we find the system to be very covalent with a large amount of ligand holes. A shift in the chemical potential is visible in the O K- and Fe L_2,3-edge spectra which emphasizes the importance of band effects in these compounds.
In order to realize superconductivity in cuprates with the T-type structure, not only chemical substitution (Ce doping) but also post-growth reduction annealing is necessary. In the case of thin films, however, well-designed reduction annealing alone without Ce doping can induce superconductivity in the T-type cuprates. In order to unveil the origin of superconductivity in the Ce-undoped T-type cuprates, we have performed bulk-sensitive hard x-ray photoemission and soft x-ray absorption spectroscopies on superconducting and non-superconducting Nd$_{2-x}$Ce$_x$CuO$_4$ ($x=$ 0, 0.15, and 0.19) thin films. By post-growth annealing, core-level spectra exhibited dramatic changes, which we attributed to the enhancement of core-hole screening in the CuO$_2$ plane and the shift of chemical potential along with changes in the band filling. The result suggests that the superconducting Nd$_2$CuO$_4$ film is doped with electrons and that the electronic states are similar to those of Ce-doped superconductors.
We have performed high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy on heavily electron-doped non-superconducting (SC) BaFe$_{1.7}$Co$_{0.3}$As$_2$. We find that the two hole Fermi surface pockets at the zone center observed in the hole-doped superconducting Ba$_{0.6}$K$_{0.4}$Fe$_2$As$_2$ are absent or very small in this compound, while the two electron pockets at the M point significantly expand due to electron doping by the Co substitution. Comparison of the Fermi surface between non-SC and SC samples indicates that the coexistence of hole and electron pockets connected via the antiferromagnetic wave vector is essential in realizing the mechanism of superconductivity in the iron-based superconductors.
The electronic structure of LaOFeAs, a parent compound of iron-arsenic superconductors, is studied by angleresolved photoemission spectroscopy. By examining its dependence on photon energy, polarization, sodium dosing and the counting of Fermi surface volume, both the bulk and the surface contributions are identified. We find that a bulk band moves toward high binding energies below structural transition, and shifts smoothly across the spin density wave transition by about 25 meV. Our data suggest the band reconstruction may play a crucial role in the spin density wave transition, and the structural transition is driven by the short range magnetic order. For the surface states, both the LaO-terminated and FeAs-terminated components are revealed. Certain small band shifts are verified for the FeAs-terminated surface states in the spin density wave state, which is a reflection of the bulk electronic structure reconstruction. Moreover, sharp quasiparticle peaks quickly rise at low temperatures, indicating of drastic reduction of the scattering rate. A kink structure in one of the surface band is shown to be possibly related to the electron-phonon interactions.
We present a soft X-ray angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (SX-ARPES) study of the stoichiometric pnictide superconductor LaRu2P2. The observed electronic structure is in good agreement with density functional theory (DFT) calculations. However, it is significantly different from its counterpart in high-temperature superconducting Fe-pnictides. In particular the bandwidth renormalization present in the Fe-pnictides (~2 - 3) is negligible in LaRu2P2 even though the mass enhancement is similar in both systems. Our results suggest that the superconductivity in LaRu2P2 has a different origin with respect to the iron pnictides. Finally we demonstrate that the increased probing depth of SX-ARPES, compared to the widely used ultraviolet ARPES, is essential in determining the bulk electronic structure in the experiment.
We study the electronic properties of the $textrm{Fe}textrm{Se}_{1-x}textrm{Te}_x$ system ($x=0$, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1) from the perspective of X-ray spectroscopy and density functional theory (DFT). The analysis performed on the density of states reveals marked differences in the distribution of the $5p$ states of Te for $x>0$. We think that this finding can be associated with the fact that superconductivity is suppressed in FeTe. Moreover, using resonant inelastic X-ray scattering, we estimate the spin state of our system which can be correlated to the magnetic order. We find that the spin state of the $textrm{Fe}textrm{Se}_{1-x}textrm{Te}_x$ system fluctuates, as a function of $x$, between $S=0$ and $S=2$ with Fe in FeSe in the highest spin state. Finally, our DFT calculations nicely reproduce the X-ray emission spectra performed at the Fe $L$-edge (which probe the occupied states) and suggest that the $textrm{Fe}textrm{Se}_{1-x}textrm{Te}_x$ system can be considered at most as a moderately correlated system.