No Arabic abstract
Through a direct comparison of specific heat and magneto-resistance we critically asses the nature of superconducting fluctuations in the same nano-gram crystal of SmFeAs(O, F). We show that although the superconducting fluctuation contribution to conductivity scales well within the 2D-LLL scheme its predictions contrast the inherently 3D nature of SmFeAs(O, F) in the vicinity T_{c}. Furthermore the transition seen in specific heat cannot be satisfactory described either by the LLL or the XY scaling. Additionally we have validated, through comparing Hc2 values obtained from the entropy conservation construction (Hab=-19.5 T/K and Hab=-2.9 T/K), the analysis of fluctuation contribution to conductivity as a reasonable method for estimating the Hc2 slope.
The upper and lower critical fields have been deduced from specific heat and Hall probe magnetization measurements in non-optimally doped NdFeAs(O,F) single crystals ($T_c sim 32-35$K). The anisoptropy of the penetration depth ($Gamma_lambda$) is temperature independent and on the order of $4.0 pm 1.5$. Similarly specific heat data lead an anisotropy of the coherence lenght $Gamma_xi sim 5.5 pm 1.5$ close to $T_c$. Our results suggest the presence of rather large thermal fluctuations and to the existence of a vortex liquid phase over a broad temperature range ($sim 5$K large at 2T).
We present measurements of the resistivity and the upper critical field H_c2 of Nd(O_0.7F_0.3)FeAs single crystals in strong DC and pulsed magnetic fields up to 45 T and 60 T, respectively. We found that the field scale of H_c2 is comparable to ~100 T of high T_c cuprates. H_c2(T) parallel to the c-axis exhibits a pronounced upward curvature similar to what was extracted from earlier measurements on polycrystalline samples. Thus this behavior is indeed an intrinsic feature of oxypnictides, rather than manifestation of vortex lattice melting or granularity. The orientational dependence of H_c2 shows deviations from the one-band Ginzburg-Landau scaling. The mass anisotropy decreases as T decreases, from 9.2 at 44K to 5 at 34K. Spin dependent magnetoresistance and nonlinearities in the Hall coefficient suggest contribution to the conductivity from electron-electron interactions modified by disorder reminiscent that of diluted magnetic semiconductors. The Ohmic resistivity measured below T_c but above the irreversibility field exhibits a clear Arrhenius thermally activated behavior over 4-5 decades. The activation energy has very different field dependencies for H||ab and Hperp ab. We discuss to what extent different pairing scenarios can manifest themselves in the observed behavior of H_{c2}, using the two-band model of superconductivity. The results indicate the importance of paramagnetic effects on H_c2(T),which may significantly reduce H_c2(0) as compared toH_c2(0)~200-300 T based on extrapolations of H_c2(T) near T_c down to low temperatures.
We report the field-orientation dependent specific heat of the spin-triplet superconductor Sr2RuO4 under the magnetic field aligned parallel to the RuO2 planes with high accuracy. Below about 0.3 K, striking 4-fold oscillations of the density of states reflecting the superconducting gap structure have been resolved for the first time. We also obtained strong evidence of multi-band superconductivity and concluded that the superconducting gap in the active band, responsible for the superconducting instability, is modulated with a minimum along the [100] direction.
Hall effect and magnetoresistance have been measured on single crystals of $NdFeAsO_{1-x}F_{x}$ with x = 0 ($T_c$ = 0 $ $K) and x = 0.18 ($T_c$ = 50 $ $K). For the undoped samples, strong Hall effect and magnetoresistance with strong temperature dependence were found below about 150 K. The magnetoresistance was found to be as large as 30% at 15 K at a magnetic field of 9 T. From the transport data we found that the transition near 155 K was accomplished in two steps: first one occurs at 155 K which may be associated with the structural transition, the second one takes place at about 140 K which may correspond to the spin-density wave like transition. In the superconducting sample with $T_c$ = 50 $ $K, it is found that the Hall coefficient also reveals a strong temperature dependence with a negative sign. But the magnetoresistance becomes very weak and does not satisfy the Kohlers scaling law. These dilemmatic results (strong Hall effect and very weak magnetoresistance) prevent to understand the normal state electric conduction by a simple multi-band model by taking account the electron and hole pockets. Detailed analysis further indicates that the strong temperature dependence of $R_H$ cannot be easily understood with the simple multi-band model either. A picture concerning a suppression to the density of states at the Fermi energy in lowering temperature is more reasonable. A comparison between the Hall coefficient of the undoped sample and the superconducting sample suggests that the doping may remove the nesting condition for the formation of the SDW order, since both samples have very similar temperature dependence above 175 K.
The specific heat $C(T)$ of new iron-based high-$T_c$ superconductor SmO$_{1-x}$F$_x$FeAs ($0 leq x leq 0.2$) was systematically studied. For undoped $x$ = 0 sample, a specific heat jump was observed at 130 K. This is attributed to the structural or spin-density-wave (SDW) transition, which also manifests on resistivity as a rapid drop. However, this jump disappears with slight F doping in $x$ = 0.05 sample, although the resistivity drop still exists. The specific heat $C/T$ shows clear anomaly near $T_c$ for $x$ = 0.15 and 0.20 superconducting samples. Such anomaly has been absent in LaO$_{1-x}$F$_x$FeAs. For the parent compound SmOFeAs, $C(T)$ shows a sharp peak at 4.6 K, and with electron doping in $x$ = 0.15 sample, this peak shifts to 3.7 K. It is interpreted that such a sharp peak results from the antiferromagnetic ordering of Sm$^{3+}$ ions in this system, which mimics the electron-doped high-$T_c$ cuprate Sm$_{2-x}$Ce$_x$CuO$_{4-delta}$.