No Arabic abstract
It is well known that superconductivity in Fe-based materials is favoured under tetragonal symmetry, whereas competing orders such as spin-density-wave (SDW) and nematic orders emerge or are reinforced upon breaking the fourfold (C4) symmetry. Accordingly, suppression of orthorhombicity below the superconducting transition temperature (Tc) is found in underdoped compounds. Epitaxial film growth on selected substrates allows the design of crystal specific lattice distortions. Here we show that despite the breakdown of the C4 symmetry induced by a 5% difference in the lattice parameters, monolayers of FeSe grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on the (110) surface of SrTiO3 (STO) substrates [FeSe/STO(110)] exhibit a large nearly isotropic superconducting (SC) gap of 16 meV closing around 60 K. Our results on this new interfacial material, similar to those obtained previously on FeSe/STO(001), contradict the common belief that the C4 symmetry is essential for reaching high Tcs in Fe-based superconductors.
The coexistence and competition between superconductivity and electronic orders, such as spin or charge density waves, have been a central issue in high transition-temperature (${T_{rm c}}$) superconductors. Unlike other iron-based superconductors, FeSe exhibits nematic ordering without magnetism whose relationship with its superconductivity remains unclear. More importantly, a pressure-induced fourfold increase of ${T_{rm c}}$ has been reported, which poses a profound mystery. Here we report high-pressure magnetotransport measurements in FeSe up to $sim9$ GPa, which uncover a hidden magnetic dome superseding the nematic order. Above ${sim6}$ GPa the sudden enhancement of superconductivity (${T_{rm c}le38.3}$ K) accompanies a suppression of magnetic order, demonstrating their competing nature with very similar energy scales. Above the magnetic dome we find anomalous transport properties suggesting a possible pseudogap formation, whereas linear-in-temperature resistivity is observed above the high-${T_{rm c}}$ phase. The obtained phase diagram highlights unique features among iron-based superconductors, but bears some resemblance to that of high-${T_{rm c}}$ cuprates.
Strain is a powerful experimental tool to explore new electronic states and understand unconventional superconductivity. Here, we investigate the effect of uniaxial strain on the nematic and superconducting phase of single crystal FeSe using magnetotransport measurements. We find that the resistivity response to the strain is strongly temperature dependent and it correlates with the sign change in the Hall coefficient being driven by scattering, coupling with the lattice and multiband phenomena. Band structure calculations suggest that under strain the electron pockets develop a large in-plane anisotropy as compared with the hole pocket. Magnetotransport studies at low temperatures indicate that the mobility of the dominant carriers increases with tensile strain. Close to the critical temperature, all resistivity curves at constant strain cross in a single point, indicating a universal critical exponent linked to a strain-induced phase transition. Our results indicate that the superconducting state is enhanced under compressive strain and suppressed under tensile strain, in agreement with the trends observed in FeSe thin films and overdoped pnictides, whereas the nematic phase seems to be affected in the opposite way by the uniaxial strain. By comparing the enhanced superconductivity under strain of different systems, our results suggest that strain on its own cannot account for the enhanced high $T_c$ superconductivity of FeSe systems.
As a foundation of condensed matter physics, the normal states of most metals are successfully described by Landau Fermi liquid theory with quasi-particles and their Fermi surfaces (FSs). The FSs sometimes become deformed or gapped at low temperatures owing to quasi-particle interactions, known as FS instabilities. A notable example of a FS deformation that breaks only the rotation symmetry, namely Pomeranchuk instability, is the d-wave FS distortion, which is also proposed as one possible origin of electron nematicity in iron-based superconductors. However, no clear evidence has been made for its existence, mostly owing to the mixture of multiple orders. Here we report an unequivocally observation of the Pomeranchuk nematic order in floating monolayer (ML) FeSe on 1 ML-FeSe/SrTiO3 substrate. By using angle-resolve photoemission spectroscopy, we find remarkably that the dxz and dyz bands are degenerate at the Brillouin zone center (Gamma point), while their splitting is even larger at zone corner (M point), in stark contrast to that in bulk FeSe. Our detailed analysis show that the momentum-dependent nematic order in floating monolayer FeSe is coming from the d-wave Pomeranchuk instability at M point, shedding light on the origin of the ubiquitous nematicity in iron-based superconductors. Our results establish the single-layer high-Tc superconductors as an excellent material platform for investigating emergent quantum physics under complex intertwinement.
Superconductivity in the cuprate superconductors and the Fe-based superconductors is realized by doping the parent compound with charge carriers, or by application of high pressure, to suppress the antiferromagnetic state. Such a rich phase diagram is important in understanding superconductivity mechanism and other physics in the Cu- and Fe-based high temperature superconductors. In this paper, we report a phase diagram in the single-layer FeSe films grown on SrTiO3 substrate by an annealing procedure to tune the charge carrier concentration over a wide range. A dramatic change of the band structure and Fermi surface is observed, with two distinct phases identified that are competing during the annealing process. Superconductivity with a record high transition temperature (Tc) at ~65 K is realized by optimizing the annealing process. The wide tunability of the system across different phases, and its high-Tc, make the single-layer FeSe film ideal not only to investigate the superconductivity physics and mechanism, but also to study novel quantum phenomena and for potential applications.
We investigate the thermodynamic properties of FeSe under the in-plane magnetic fields using torque magnetometry, specific heat, magnetocaloric measurements. Below the upper critical field Hc2, we observed the field-induced anomalies at H1 ~ 15 T and H2 ~ 22 T near H//ab and below a characteristic temperature T* ~ 2 K. The transition magnetic fields H1 and H2 exhibit negligible dependence on both temperature and field orientation. This contrasts with the strong temperature and angle dependence of Hc2, suggesting that these anomalies are attributed to the field-induced phase transitions, originating from the inherent spin-density-wave instability of quasiparticles near the superconducting gap minima or possible Flude-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov state in the highly spin-polarized Fermi surfaces. Our observations imply that FeSe, an atypical multiband superconductor with extremely small Fermi energies, represents a unique model system for stabilizing unusual superconducting orders beyond the Pauli limit.