No Arabic abstract
Understanding the overall features of magnetic excitation is essential for clarifying the mechanism of Cooper pair formation in iron-based superconductors. In particular, clarifying the relationship between magnetism and superconductivity is a central challenge because magnetism may play a key role in their exotic superconductivity. BaFe2As2 is one of ideal systems for such investigation because its superconductivity can be induced in several ways, allowing a comparative examination. Here we report a study on the spin fluctuations of the hole-overdoped iron-based superconductors Ba1-xKxFe2As2 (x = 0.5 and 1.0; Tc = 36 K and 3.4 K, respectively) over the entire Brillouin zone using inelastic neutron scattering. We find that their spin spectra consist of spin wave and chimney-like dispersions. The chimney-like dispersion can be attributed to the itinerant character of magnetism. The band width of the spin wave-like dispersion is almost constant from the non-doped to optimum-doped region, which is followed by a large reduction in the overdoped region. This suggests that the superconductivity is suppressed by the reduction of magnetic exchange couplings, indicating a strong relationship between magnetism and superconductivity in iron-based superconductors.
The mechanism of Cooper pair formation in iron-based superconductors remains a controversial topic. The main question is whether spin or orbital fluctuations are responsible for the pairing mechanism. To solve this problem, a crucial clue can be obtained by examining the remarkable enhancement of magnetic neutron scattering signals appearing in a superconducting phase. The enhancement is called spin resonance for a spin fluctuation model, in which their energy is restricted below twice the superconducting gap value (2Ds), whereas larger energies are possible in other models such as an orbital fluctuation model. Here we report the doping dependence of low-energy magnetic excitation spectra in Ba1-xKxFe2As2 for 0.5<x<0.84 studied by inelastic neutron scattering. We find that the behavior of the spin resonance dramatically changes from optimum to overdoped regions. Strong resonance peaks are observed clearly below 2Ds in the optimum doping region, while they are absent in the overdoped region. Instead, there is a transfer of spectral weight from energies below 2Ds to higher energies, peaking at values of 3Ds for x = 0.84. These results suggest a reduced impact of magnetism on Cooper pair formation in the overdoped region.
Multiband systems, which possess a wide parameter space, allow to explore a variety of competing ground states. Bright examples are the Fe-based pnictides and chalcogenides, which demonstrate metallic, superconducting, and various magnetic phases. Here I discuss only one of the many interesting topics, namely, spin fluctuations in metallic multiband systems. I show how to calculate the effect of itinerant spin excitations on the electronic properties and formulate a theory of spin fluctuation-induced superconductivity. The superconducting state is unconventional and thus the system demonstrates unusual spin response with the spin resonance feature. I discuss its origin, consequences, and relation to experimental observations. Role of the spin-orbit coupling is specifically emphasized.
Zero field and longitudinal field muon spin relaxation measurements have been performed in optimally doped and overdoped superconductors LaFeAsO$_{1-x}$F$_x$ in order to investigate the magnetic fluctuation over a wide range of temperature and longitudinal field. We have observed no sign of magnetic fluctuation against temperature in the muons time window (10$^{-5}sim$ 10$^{-9}$s). Considering the current results and other results, i.e., spin fluctuation observed by neutron scattering, pseudogap-like behaviors by NMR and photoemission spectroscopy, it is suggested that not only the spin fluctuation but also the multiband character with several different orbital contributions at the Fermi surface may play an important role in the superconducting pairing mechanism of LaFeAsO$_{1-x}$F$_x$.
We report on the influence of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in the Fe-based superconductors (FeSCs) via application of circularly-polarized spin and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. We combine this technique in representative members of both the Fe-pnictides and Fe-chalcogenides with ab initio density functional theory and tight-binding calculations to establish an ubiquitous modification of the electronic structure in these materials imbued by SOC. The influence of SOC is found to be concentrated on the hole pockets where the superconducting gap is generally found to be largest. This result contests descriptions of superconductivity in these materials in terms of pure spin-singlet eigenstates, raising questions regarding the possible pairing mechanisms and role of SOC therein.
Iron-based superconducting layered compounds have the second highest transition temperature after cuprate superconductors. Their discovery is a milestone in the history of high-temperature superconductivity and will have profound implications for high-temperature superconducting mechanism as well as industrial applications. Raman scattering has been extensively applied to correlated electron systems including the new superconductors due to its unique ability to probe multiple primary excitations and their coupling. In this review, we will give a brief summary of the existing Raman experiments in the iron-based materials and their implication for pairing mechanism in particular. And we will also address some open issues from the experiments.