No Arabic abstract
We have investigated the effect of Fe nonstoichiometry on properties of the Fe1+y(Te, Se) superconductor system by means of resistivity, Hall coefficient, magnetic susceptibility, and specific heat measurements. We find that the excess Fe at interstitial sites of the (Te, Se) layers not only suppresses superconductivity, but also results in a weakly localized electronic state. We argue that these effects originate from the magnetic coupling between the excess Fe and the adjacent Fe square planar sheets, which favors a short-range magnetic order.
Experimental evidences from transport, magnetic, and magneto-optical (MO) image measurements confirmed that arsenic (As) vapor annealing was another effective way to induce bulk superconductivity with isotropic, large, and homogenous superconducting critical current density (Jc) in Fe1+yTe0.6Se0.4 single crystal. Since As is an exotic and easily detectable heavy element to Fe1+yTe0.6Se0.4 single crystal, As vapor annealing is very advantageous for the study of annealing mechanism. Detailed micro-structural and elemental analyses exclude the possibility that intercalating or doping effect may happen in the other post-annealing methods, proving that Fe reacts with As on the surface of the crystal and the reaction itself acts as a driving force to drag excess Fe out. The removal of excess Fe results in the good superconductivity performance.
Single crystals of Fe(1+x)Te(1-y)Se(y) have been grown with a controlled Fe excess and Se doping, and the crystal structure has been refined for various compositions. The systematic investigation of magnetic and superconducting properties as a function of the structural parameters shows how the material can be driven into various ground states, depending on doping and the structural modifications. Our results prove that the occupation of the additional Fe site, Fe2, enhances the spin localization. By reducing the excess Fe, the antiferromagnetic ordering is weakened, and the superconducting ground state is favored. We have found that both Fe excess and Se doping in synergy determine the properties of the material and an improved 3-dimensional phase diagram is proposed.
We present a systematic study of the nematic fluctuations in the iron chalcogenide superconductor Fe$_{1+y}$Te$_{1-x}$Se$_{x}$ ($0 leq x leq 0.53$) using the elastoresistivity technique. Near $x = 0$, in proximity to the double-stripe magnetic order of Fe$_{1+y}$Te, a diverging $B_{1g}$ nematic susceptibility is observed. Upon increasing $x$, despite the absence of magnetic order, the $B_{2g}$ nematic susceptibility increases and becomes dominant, closely following the strength of the $(pi, pi)$ spin fluctuations. Over a wide range of compositions ($0.17 leq x leq 0.53$), while the $B_{2g}$ nematic susceptibility follows a Curie temperature dependence (with zero Weiss temperature) at low temperatures, it shows deviations from Curie-Weiss behavior for temperatures higher than $50K$. This is the opposite of what is observed in typical iron pnictides, where Curie-Weiss deviations are seen at low temperatures. We attribute this unusual temperature dependence to a loss of coherence of the $d_{xy}$ orbital, which is supported by our theoretical calculations. Our results highlight the importance of orbital differentiation on the nematic properties of iron-based materials.
Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy we have studied the low-energy electronic structure and the Fermi surface topology of Fe$_{1+y}$Te$_{1-x}$Se$_x$ superconductors. Similar to the known iron pnictides we observe hole pockets at the center and electron pockets at the corner of the Brillouin zone (BZ). However, on a finer level, the electronic structure around the $Gamma$- and $Z$-points in $k$-space is substantially different from other iron pnictides, in that we observe two hole pockets at the $Gamma$-point, and more interestingly only one hole pocket is seen at the $Z$-point, whereas in $1111$-, $111$-, and $122$-type compounds, three hole pockets could be readily found at the zone center. Another major difference noted in the Fe$_{1+y}$Te$_{1-x}$Se$_x$ superconductors is that the top of innermost hole-like band moves away from the Fermi level to higher binding energy on going from $Gamma$ to $Z$, quite opposite to the iron pnictides. The polarization dependence of the observed features was used to aid the attribution of the orbital character of the observed bands. Photon energy dependent measurements suggest a weak $k_z$ dispersion for the outer hole pocket and a moderate $k_z$ dispersion for the inner hole pocket. By evaluating the momentum and energy dependent spectral widths, the single-particle self-energy was extracted and interestingly this shows a pronounced non-Fermi liquid behaviour for these compounds. The experimental observations are discussed in context of electronic band structure calculations and models for the self-energy such as the spin-fermion model and the marginal-Fermi liquid.
Magnetic spin fluctuations is one candidate to produce the bosonic modes that mediate the superconductivity in the ferrous superconductors. Up until now, all of the LaOFeAs and BaFe2As2 structure types have simple commensurate magnetic ground states, as result of nesting Fermi surfaces. This type of spin-density-wave (SDW) magnetic order is known to be vulnerable to shifts in the Fermi surface when electronic densities are altered at the superconducting compositions. Superconductivity has more recently been discovered in alpha-Fe(Te,Se), whose electronically active antifluorite planes are isostructural to the FeAs layers found in the previous ferrous superconductors and share with them the same quasi-two-dimensional electronic structure. Here we report neutron scattering studies that reveal a unique complex incommensurate antiferromagnetic order in the parent compound alpha-FeTe. When the long-range magnetic order is suppressed by the isovalent substitution of Te with Se, short-range correlations survive in the superconducting phase.