No Arabic abstract
We have studied the angular dependent de Haas-van Alphen oscillations of LaRu$_2$P$_2$ using magnetic torque in pulsed magnetic fields up to 60T. The observed oscillation frequencies are in excellent agreement with the geometry of the calculated Fermi surface. The temperature dependence of the oscillation amplitudes reveals effective masses m*($alpha$)=0.71 and m*($beta$)=0.99 m$_e$, which are enhanced over the calculated band mass by $lambda^{cyc}$ of 0.8. We find a similar enhancement $lambda^{gamma} approx 1$ in comparing the measured electronic specific heat ($gamma = 11.5$ mJ/mol K$^2$) with the total DOS from band structure calculations. Remarkably, very similar mass enhancements have been reported in other pnictides LaFe$_2$P$_2$, LaFePO ($T_c approx 4K$), and LaRuPO, independent of whether they are superconducting or not. This is contrary to the common perceptions that the normal state quasi-particle renormalizations reflect the strength of the superconducting paring mechanism and leads to new questions about pairing in isostructural and isoelectronic Ru- and Fe-pnictide superconductors.
The structural properties of LaRu$_2$P$_2$ under external pressure have been studied up to 14 GPa, employing high-energy x-ray diffraction in a diamond-anvil pressure cell. At ambient conditions, LaRu$_2$P$_2$ (I4/mmm) has a tetragonal structure with a bulk modulus of $B=105(2)$ GPa and exhibits superconductivity at $T_c= 4.1$ K. With the application of pressure, LaRu$_2$P$_2$ undergoes a phase transition to a collapsed tetragonal (cT) state with a bulk modulus of $B=175(5)$ GPa. At the transition, the c-lattice parameter exhibits a sharp decrease with a concurrent increase of the a-lattice parameter. The cT phase transition in LaRu$_2$P$_2$ is consistent with a second order transition, and was found to be temperature dependent, increasing from $P=3.9(3)$ GPa at 160 K to $P=4.6(3)$ GPa at 300 K. In total, our data are consistent with the cT transition being near, but slightly above 2 GPa at 5 K. Finally, we compare the effect of physical and chemical pressure in the RRu$_2$P$_2$ (R = Y, La-Er, Yb) isostructural series of compounds and find them to be analogous.
A quantum critical point (QCP) is currently being conjectured for the BaFe$_2$(As$_{1-x}$P$_x$)$_2$ system at the critical value $x_{rm c} approx$ 0.3. In the proximity of a QCP, all thermodynamic and transport properties are expected to scale with a single characteristic energy, given by the quantum fluctuations. Such an universal behavior has not, however, been found in the superconducting upper critical field $H_{rm c2}$. Here we report $H_{rm c2}$-data for epitaxial thin films extracted from the electrical resistance measured in very high magnetic fields up to 67 Tesla. Using a multi-band analysis we find that $H_{rm c2}$ is sensitive to the QCP, implying a significant charge carrier effective mass enhancement at the doping-induced QCP that is essentially band-dependent. Our results point to two qualitatively different groups of electrons in BaFe$_2$(As$_{1-x}$P$_x$)$_2$. The first one (possibly associated to hot spots or whole Fermi sheets) has a strong mass enhancement at the QCP, and the second one is insensitive to the QCP. The observed duality could also be present in many other quantum critical systems.
Single crystals of Ba(Fe$_{1-x}$Ru$_x$)$_2$As$_2$, $x<0.37$, have been grown and characterized by structural, magnetic and transport measurements. These measurements show that the structural/magnetic phase transition found in pure BaFe$_2$As$_2$ at 134 K is suppressed monotonically by Ru doping, but, unlike doping with TM=Co, Ni, Cu, Rh or Pd, the coupled transition seen in the parent compound does not detectably split into two separate ones. Superconductivity is stabilized at low temperatures for $x>0.2$ and continues through the highest doping levels we report. The superconducting region is dome like, with maximum T$_c$ ($sim16.5$ K) found around $xsim 0.29$. A phase diagram of temperature versus doping, based on electrical transport and magnetization measurements, has been constructed and compared to those of the Ba(Fe$_{1-x}$TM$_x$)$_2$As$_2$ (TM=Co, Ni, Rh, Pd) series as well as to the temperature-pressure phase diagram for pure BaFe$_2$As$_2$. Suppression of the structural/magnetic phase transition as well as the appearance of superconductivity is much more gradual in Ru doping, as compared to Co, Ni, Rh and Pd doping, and appears to have more in common with BaFe$_2$As$_2$ tuned with pressure; by plotting $T_S/T_m$ and $T_c$ as a function of changes in unit cell dimensions, we find that changed in the $c/a$ ratio, rather than changes in $c$, $a$ or V, unify the $T(p)$ and $T(x)$ phase diagrams for BaFe$_2$As$_2$ and Ba(Fe$_{1-x}$Ru$_x$)$_2$As$_2$ respectively.
We investigate the importance of superconducting order parameter fluctuations in the 122 family of Fe-based superconductors, using high-resolution specific heat and thermal expansion data of various Ba$_{1-x}$K$_x$Fe$_2$As$_2$ single crystals covering a large range of the phase diagram from the strongly underdoped to the overdoped regime. By applying scaling relations of the 3d-XY and the 3d-Lowest-Landau-Level (3d-LLL) fluctuation models to data measured in different magnetic fields, we demonstrate that a strong increase of the critical fluctuation regime is responsible for the transition broadening in magnetic fields, which is a direct consequence of a magnetic-field-induced finite size effect due to a reduction of the effective dimensionality by a decreasing magnetic length scale related to the mean vortex separation and the confinement of quasiparticles in low Landau levels. The fluctuations are stronger in the underdoped and overdoped regimes and appear to be weakest at optimal doping.
We used high-energy resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to extract the momentum dependence of the superconducting gap of Ru-substituted Ba(Fe$_{0.75}$Ru$_{0.25}$)$_2$As$_2$ ($T_c = 15$ K). Despite a strong out-of-plane warping of the Fermi surface, the magnitude of the superconducting gap observed experimentally is nearly isotropic and independent of the out-of-plane momentum. More precisely, we respectively observed 5.7 meV and 4.5 meV superconducting gaps on the inner and outer $Gamma$-centered hole Fermi surface pockets, whereas a 4.8 meV gap is recorded on the M-centered electron Fermi surface pockets. Our results are consistent with the $J_1-J_2$ model with a dominant antiferromagnetic exchange interaction between the next-nearest Fe neighbors.