The magnetic properties of LiFeAs, as single crystalline and polycrystalline samples, were investigated. The lower critical field deduced from the vortex penetration of two single crystals appears to be almost isotropic with a temperature dependence closer to that of two-gap superconductors. The parameters extracted from the reversible magnetizations of sintered polycrystalline samples are in good agreement with those from the single crystal data.
The upper critical field $mu_0H_{c2}(T_c)$ of LiFeAs single crystals has been determined by measuring the electrical resistivity using the facilities of pulsed magnetic field at Los Alamos. We found that $mu_0H_{c2}(T_c)$ of LiFeAs shows a moderate anisotropy among the layered iron-based superconductors; its anisotropic parameter $gamma$ monotonically decreases with decreasing temperature and approaches $gammasimeq 1.5$ as $Trightarrow 0$. The upper critical field reaches 15T ($Hparallel c$) and 24.2T ($Hparallel ab$) at $T=$1.4K, which value is much smaller than other iron-based high $T_c$ superconductors. The temperature dependence of $mu_0H_{c2}(T_c)$ can be described by the Werthamer-Helfand-Hohenberg (WHH) method, showing orbitally and (likely) spin-paramagnetically limited upper critical field for $Hparallel c$ and $Hparallel ab$, respectively.
Using two experimental techniques, we studied single crystals of the 122-FeAs family with almost the same critical temperature, Tc. We investigated the temperature dependence of the lower critical field of a single crystal under static magnetic fields parallel to the axis. The temperature dependence of the London penetration depth can be described equally well either by a single anisotropic -wave-like gap or by a two-gap model, while a d-wave approach cannot be used to fit the London penetration depth data. Intrinsic multiple Andreev reflection effect spectroscopy was used to detect bulk gap values in single crystals of the intimate compound, with the same Tc. We estimated the range of the large gap value 6-8 meV (depending on small variation of and its a space anisotropy of about 30%, and the small gap 1.7 meV. This clearly indicates that the gap structure of our investigated systems more likely corresponds to a nodeless s-wave two gaps.
Miniature Hall-probe arrays were used to measure the critical current densities for the three main directions of vortex motion in the stoichiometric LiFeAs superconductor. These correspond to vortices oriented along the c-axis moving parallel to the ab-plane, and to vortices in the ab-plane moving perpendicular to, and within the plane, respectively. The measurements were carried out in the low-field regime of strong vortex pinning, in which the critical current anisotropy is solely determined by the coherence length anisotropy parameter, {epsilon}_{xi}. This allows extraction of {epsilon}_{xi} at magnetic fields far below the upper critical field B_c2. We find that increasing magnetic field decreases the anisotropy of the coherence length.
Gap symmetry and structure are crucial issues in understanding the superconducting mechanism of unconventional superconductors. Here we report an in-depth investigation on the out-of-plane lower critical field $H_{c1}^{c}$ of fluorine-based 1111 system superconductor CaFe$_{0.88}$Co$_{0.12}$AsF with $T_c$ = 21 K. A pronounced two-gap feature is revealed by the kink in the temperature dependent $H_{c1}^c(T)$ curve. The magnitudes of the two gaps are determined to be $Delta_1$ = 0.86 meV and $Delta_2$ = 4.48 meV, which account for 74% and 26% of the total superfluid density respectively. Our results suggest that the local antiferromagnetic exchange pairing picture is favored compared to the Fermi surface nesting scenario.
We present direct measurements of the superconducting order parameter in nearly optimal FeSe$_{0.5}$Te$_{0.5}$ single crystals with critical temperature $T_C approx 14$ K. Using intrinsic multiple Andreev reflection effect (IMARE) spectroscopy and measurements of lower critical field, we directly determined two superconducting gaps, $Delta_L approx 3.3 - 3.4$ meV and $Delta_S approx 1$ meV, and their temperature dependences. We show that a two-band model fits well the experimental data. The estimated electron-boson coupling constants indicate a strong intraband and a moderate interband interaction.