No Arabic abstract
To understand the chemical reaction at the interface of materials, we performed a transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observation in four types of Fe(Te,Se) superconducting thin films prepared on different types of substrates: CaF2 substrate, CaF2 substrate with a CaF2 buffer layer, CaF2 substrate with a FeSe buffer layer, and a LaAlO3 substrate with a CaF2 buffer layer. Based on the energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDX) analysis, we found possible interdiffusion between fluorine and selenium that has a strong influence on the superconductivity in Fe(Te,Se) films. The chemical interdiffusion also plays a significant role in the variation of the lattice parameters. The lattice parameters of the Fe(Te,Se) thin films are primarily determined by the chemical substitution of anions, and the lattice mismatch only plays a secondary role.
In this paper we explore the effects of 3.5 MeV proton irradiation on Fe(Se,Te) thin films grown on CaF2. In particular, we carry out a systematic experimental investigation with different irradiation fluences up to 7.30x10^16 cm^-2 and different proton implantation depths, in order to clarify whether and to what extent the critical current is enhanced or suppressed, what are the effects of irradiation on the critical temperature, the resistivity and the critical magnetic fields, and finally what is the role played by the substrate in this context. We find that the effect of irradiation on superconducting properties is generally small as compared to the case of other iron-based superconductors. Such effect is more evident on the critical current density Jc, while it is minor on the transition temperature Tc, on the normal state resistivity and on the upper critical field Hc2 up to the highest fluences explored in this work. In addition, our analysis shows that when protons implant in the substrate far from the superconducting film, the critical current can be enhanced up to 50% of the pristine value at 7 T and 12 K, while there is no appreciable effect on critical temperature and critical fields together with a slight decrease in resistivity. On the contrary, when the implantation layer is closer to the film-substrate interface, both critical current and temperature show a decrease accompanied by an enhancement of the resistivity and the lattice strain. This result evidences that possible modifications induced by irradiation in the substrate may affect the superconducting properties of the film via lattice strain. The robustness of the Fe(Se,Te) system to irradiation induced damage makes it a promising compound for the fabrication of magnets in high-energy accelerators.
In-situ epitaxial growth of FeSe$_{0.5}$Te$_{0.5}$ thin films is demonstrated on a non-oxide substrate CaF$_2$. Structural analysis reveals that compressive stress is moderately added to 36-nm thick FeSe$_{0.5}$Te$_{0.5}$, which pushes up the critical temperature above 15 K, showing higher values than that of bulk crystals. Critical current density at $T$ = 4.5 K reaches 5.9 x 10$^4$ Acm$^{-2}$ at $mu_0H$ = 10 T, and 4.2 x 10$^4$ Acm$^{-2}$ at $mu_0H$ = 14 T. These results indicate that fluoride substrates have high potential for the growth of iron-based superconductors in comparison with popular oxide substrates.
We report on the isotropic pinning obtained in epitaxial Fe(Se,Te) thin films grown on CaF2 (001) substrate. High critical current density values larger than 1 MA/cm2 in self field in liquid helium are reached together with a very weak dependence on the magnetic field and a complete isotropy. Analysis through Transmission Electron Microscopy evidences the presence of defects looking like lattice disorder at a very small scale, between 5 and 20 nm, which are thought to be responsible for such isotropic behavior in contrast to what observed on SrTiO3, where defects parallel to the c-axis enhance pinning in that direction
We report on the anisotropy of the vortex motion surface impedance of a fst thin film grown on a CaF$_2$ substrate. The dependence on the magnetic field intensity up to 1.2 T and direction, both parallel and perpendicular to the sample $c$-axis, was explored at fixed temperature at two distinct frequencies, $sim16;$GHz and $sim27;$GHz, by means of bitonal dielectric resonator. The free flux flow resistivity $rho_{ff}$ was obtained by exploiting standard models for the high frequency dynamics, whereas the angle dependence was studied in the framework of the well known and widely used Blatter-Geshkenbein-Larkin (BGL) scaling theory for anistropic superconductors. Excellent agreement with the scaling law prescription by the fluxon flux flow resistivity was obtained. From the scaling analysis, a low-field mass anisotropy $sim1.8$ was obtained, well within the value ranges reported in literature. The angular dependence of the pinning constant suggests that pinning is dominated by random, isotropic point pins, consistently with critical current density measurements.
We report on the first local atomic structure study via the pair density function (PDF) analysis of neutron diffraction data and show a direct correlation of local coordinates to TC in the newly discovered superconducting FeSe1-xTex. The isovalent substitution of Te for Se such as in FeSe0.5Te0.5 increases Tc by twofold in comparison to a-FeSe without changing the carrier concentration but, on average, decreases the chalcogen-Fe bond angle. However, we find that the local symmetry is lower than the average P4/nmm crystal symmetry, because the Se and Te ions do not share the same site, leading to two distinct z-coordinates that exhibit two types of bond angles with Fe. The angle indeed increases from ~ 104.02o in FeSe to ~105.20o in FeSe0.5Te0.5 between Fe and Se. Simultaneously, ab-initio calculations based on spin density function theory yielded an optimized structure with distinct z-coordinates for Se and Te, in agreement with the experiment. The valence charge distribution in the Fe-Se bonds was found to be different from that in the Fe-Te bonds. Thus, superconductivity in this chalcogenide is closely related to the local structural environment, with direct implications on the multiband magnetism where modulations of the ionic lattice can change the distribution of valence electrons.