No Arabic abstract
We performed an angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy study of the Ni-based superconductor SrNi$_2$As$_2$. Electron and hole Fermi surface pockets are observed, but their different shapes and sizes lead to very poor nesting conditions. The experimental electronic band structure of SrNi$_2$As$_2$ is in good agreement with first-principles calculations after a slight renormalization (by a factor 1.1), confirming the picture of Hunds exchange-dominated electronic correlations decreasing with increasing filling of the $3d$ shell in the Fe-, Co- and Ni-based compounds. These findings emphasize the importance of Hunds coupling and $3d$-orbital filling as key tuning parameters of electronic correlations in transition metal pnictides.
High resolution angle-resolved photoemission measurements have been carried out on (Sr,K)Fe$_2$As$_2$ superconductor (Tc=21 K). Three hole-like Fermi surface sheets are clearly resolved for the first time around the Gamma point. The overall electronic structure shows significant difference from the band structure calculations. Qualitative agreement between the measured and calculated band structure is realized by assuming a chemical potential shift of -0.2 eV. The obvious band renormalization suggests the importance of electron correlation in understanding the electronic structure of the Fe-based compounds.
We report an angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) study of KFe$_2$As$_2$ and CsFe$_2$As$_2$, revealing the existence of a van Hove singularity affecting the electronic properties. As a result of chemical pressure, we find a stronger three-dimensionality in KFe$_2$As$_2$ than in CsFe$_2$As$_2$, notably for the 3$d_{z^2}$ states responsible for the small three-dimensional hole-like Fermi surface pocket reported by quantum oscillations. Supported by first-principles calculations, our ARPES study shows that the van Hove singularity previously reported in KFe$_2$As$_2$ moves closer to the Fermi level under negative chemical pressure. This observation, which suggests that the large density-of-states accompanying the van Hove singularity contributes to the large Sommerfeld coefficient reported for the AFe$_2$As$_2$ (A = K, Rb, Cs) series, is also consistent with the evolution of the inelastic scattering revealed by transport under external pressure, thus offering a possible interpretation for the origin of the apparent change in the superconducting order parameter under pressure. We find that the coherent spectral weight decreases exponentially upon increasing temperature with a characteristic temperature $T^*$. We speculate how the low-energy location of the van Hove singularity and the presence of a low-energy peak in the phonon density-of-states can relate to the high-temperature crossover observed in various electronic and thermodynamic quantities.
We investigated the superconducting gap structure of SrNi$_2$P$_{2}$ ($T_c$=1.4 K) via low-temperature magneto-thermal conductivity $kappa(T,H)$ measurements. Zero field thermal conductivity $kappa$ decreases exponentially $kappa propto$ exp($-aT_c/T$) with $a$=1.5, in accord with the BCS theory, and rolls over to a phonon-like $kappapropto T^3$ behavior at low temperature, similar to a number of conventional s-wave superconductors. In addition, we observed a concave field dependence of the residual linear term $kappa_0(H)/T$. These facts strongly rule out the presence of nodes in the superconducting energy gap of SrNi$_2$P$_{2}$. Together with a fully gapped Fermi surface in the superconducting state of BaNi$_2$As$_{2}$ ($T_c$=0.6-0.7 K), demonstrated in our recent work, these results lead us to postulate that fully gapped superconductivity is a universal feature of Ni-based pnictide superconductors.
High-quality K(Fe$_{1-x}$Co$_x$)$_2$As$_2$ single crystals have been grown by using KAs flux method. Instead of increasing the superconducting transition temperature $T_{rm c}$ through electron doping, we find that Co impurities rapidly suppress $T_{rm c}$ down to zero at only $x approx$ 0.04. Such an effective suppression of $T_{rm c}$ by impurities is quite different from that observed in Ba$_{0.5}$K$_{0.5}$Fe$_2$As$_2$ with multiple nodeless superconducting gaps. Thermal conductivity measurements in zero field show that the residual linear term $kappa_0/T$ only change slightly with $3.4%$ Co doping, despite the sharp increase of scattering rate. The implications of these anomalous impurity effects are discussed.
We present a comprehensive study of the low-energy band structure and Fermi surface (FS) topology of $A$Co$_2$As$_2$ ($A=$ Ca, Sr, Ba, Eu) using high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. The experimental FS topology and band dispersion data are compared with theoretical full-potential linearized augmented-plane-wave (FP-LAPW) calculations, which yielded reasonably good agreement. We demonstrate that the FS maps of $A$Co$_2$As$_2$ are significantly different from those of the parent compounds of Fe-based high-temperature superconductors. Further, the FSs of CaCo$_2$As$_2$ do not show significant changes across its antiferromagnetic transition temperature. The band dispersions extracted in different momentum $(k_{it x}, k_{it y})$ directions show a small electron pocket at the center and a large electron pocket at the corner of the Brillouin zone (BZ). The absence of the hole FS in these compounds does not allow nesting between pockets at the Fermi energy ({it E}$_{rm F}$), which is in contrast to $A$Fe$_2$As$_2$-type parent compounds of the iron-based superconductors. Interestingly, we find that the hole bands are moved 300--400~meV below $E_{rm F}$ depending on the $A$ element. Moreover, the existence of nearly flat bands in the vicinity of $E_{rm F}$ are consistent with the large density of states at $E_{rm F}$. These results are important to understand the physical properties as well as the possibility of the emergence of superconductivity in related materials.