No Arabic abstract
We report neutron inelastic scattering measurements on the normal and superconducting states of single-crystalline Cs0.8Fe1.9Se2. Consistent with previous measurements on Rb(x)Fe(2-y)Se2, we observe two distinct spin excitation signals: (i) spin-wave excitations characteristic of the block antiferromagnetic order found in insulating A(x)Fe(2-y)Se2 compounds, and (ii) a resonance-like magnetic peak localized in energy at 11 meV and at an in-plane wave vector of (0.25, 0.5). The resonance peak increases below Tc = 27 K, and has a similar absolute intensity to the resonance peaks observed in other Fe-based superconductors. The existence of a magnetic resonance in the spectrum of Rb(x)Fe(2-y)Se2 and now of Cs(x)Fe(2-y)Se2 suggests that this is a common feature of superconductivity in this family. The low energy spin-wave excitations in Cs0.8Fe1.9Se2 show no measurable response to superconductivity, consistent with the notion of spatially separate magnetic and superconducting phases.
Two iron-chalcogenide superconductors Li(x)[C5H5N](y)Fe(2-z)Se2 and Cs(x)Fe(2-z)Se2 in the as-prepared and annealed state have been investigated by means of the Moessbauer spectroscopy versus temperature. Multi-component spectra are obtained. One can see a non-magnetic component due to iron located in the unperturbed Fe-Se sheets responsible for superconductivity. Remaining components are magnetically ordered even at room temperature. There is some magnetically ordered iron in Fe-Se sheets perturbed by presence of the iron vacancies. Additionally, one can see iron dispersed between sheets in the form of magnetically ordered high spin trivalent ions, some clusters of above ions, and in the case of pyridine intercalated compound in the form of alpha-Fe precipitates. Pyridine intercalated sample shows traces of superconductivity in the as-prepared state, while cesium intercalated sample in the as-prepared state does not show any superconductivity. Superconductors with transition temperatures being 40 K and 25 K, respectively, are obtained upon annealing. Annealing leads to removal/ordering of the iron vacancies within Fe-Se sheets, while clusters of alpha-Fe grow in the pyridine intercalated sample.
Inelastic neutron scattering is employed to study the reciprocal-space structure and dispersion of magnetic excitations in the normal and superconducting states of single-crystalline Rb0.8Fe1.6Se2. We show that the recently discovered magnetic resonant mode in this compound has a quasi-two-dimensional character, similar to overdoped iron-pnictide superconductors. Moreover, it has a rich in-plane structure that is dominated by four elliptical peaks, symmetrically surrounding the Brillouin zone corner, without sqrt(5) x sqrt(5) reconstruction. We also present evidence for the dispersion of the resonance peak, as its position in momentum space depends on energy. Comparison of our findings with the results of band structure calculations provides strong support for the itinerant origin of the observed signal. It can be traced back to the nesting of electron-like Fermi pockets in the doped metallic phase of the sample in the absence of iron-vacancy ordering.
Spin excitations stemming from the metallic phase of the ferrochalcogenide superconductor K(0.77)Fe(1.85)Se(2) (T_c=32 K) were mapped out in the ab plane by means of the time-of-flight neutron spectroscopy. We observed a magnetic resonant mode at Q_res=(1/2 1/4), whose energy and in-plane shape are almost identical to those in the related compound Rb(0.8)Fe(1.6)Se(2). This lets us infer that there is a unique underlying electronic structure of the bulk superconducting phase K(x)Fe(2)Se(2), which is universal for all alkali-metal iron selenide superconductors and stands in contrast to the doping-tunable phase diagrams of the related iron pnictides. Furthermore, the spectral weight of the resonance on the absolute scale, normalized to the volume fraction of the superconducting phase, is several times larger than in optimally doped BaFe(2-x)Co(x)As(2). We also found no evidence for any additional low-energy branches of spin excitations away from Q_res. Our results provide new input for theoretical models of the spin dynamics in iron based superconductors.
Recent discovery of superconducting (SC) ternary iron selenides has block antiferromagentic (AFM) long range order. Many experiments show possible mesoscopic phase separation of the superconductivity and antiferromagnetism, while the neutron experiment reveals a sizable suppression of magnetic moment due to the superconductivity indicating a possible phase coexistence. Here we propose that the observed suppression of the magnetic moment may be explained due to the proximity effect within a phase separation scenario. We use a two-orbital model to study the proximity effect on a layer of block AFM state induced by neighboring SC layers via an interlayer tunneling mechanism. We argue that the proximity effect in ternary Fe-selenides should be large because of the large interlayer coupling and weak electron correlation. The result of our mean field theory is compared with the neutron experiments semi-quantitatively. The suppression of the magnetic moment due to the SC proximity effect is found to be more pronounced in the d-wave superconductivity and may be enhanced by the frustrated structure of the block AFM state.
Using inelastic neutron scattering, we show that the onset of superconductivity in underdoped Ba(Fe$_{1-x}$Co$_{x}$)$_{2}$As$_{2}$ coincides with a crossover from well-defined spin waves to overdamped and diffusive spin excitations. This crossover occurs despite the presence of long-range stripe antiferromagnetic order for samples in a compositional range from x=0.04-0.055, and is a consequence of the shrinking spin-density wave gap and a corresponding increase in the particle-hole (Landau) damping. The latter effect is captured by a simple itinerant model relating Co doping to changes in the hot spots of the Fermi surface. We argue that the overdamped spin fluctuations provide a pairing mechanism for superconductivity in these materials.