No Arabic abstract
Millimeter sized single crystals of KCa_2Fe_4As_4F_2 were grown using a self-flux method. The chemical compositions and crystal structure were characterized carefully. Superconductivity with the critical transition T_c = 33.5 K was confirmed by both the resistivity and magnetic susceptibility measurements. Moreover, the upper critical field H_c2 was studied by the resistivity measurements under different magnetic fields. A rather steep increase for the in-plane H_c2^ab with cooling, dmu_0H_c2^a/dT|T_c = -50.9 T/K, was observed, indicating an extremely high upper critical field. Possible origins for this behavior were discussed. The findings in our work is a great promotion both for understanding the physical properties and applications of 12442-type Fe-based superconductors.
Low-temperature specific heat (SH) is measured for the 12442-type KCa$_2$Fe$_4$As$_4$F$_2$ single crystal under different magnetic fields. A clear SH jump with the height of $Delta C/T|_{T_c}$ = 130 mJ/mol K$^2$ is observed at the superconducting transition temperature $T_c$. It is found that the electronic SH coefficient $Deltagamma (H)$ quickly increases when the field is in the low-field region below 3 T and then considerably slows down the increase with a further increase in the field, which indicates a rather strong anisotropy or multi-gap feature with a small minimum in the superconducting gap(s). The temperature-dependent SH data indicates the presence of the $T^2$ term, which supplies further information and supports the picture with a line-nodal gap structure. Moreover, the onset point of the SH transition remains almost unchanged under the field as high as 9 T, which is similar to that observed in cuprates, and placed this system in the middle between the BCS limit and the Bose-Einstein condensation.
This paper is published in Advanced Materials (available at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/113511105/ABSTRACT). It has been withdrawn from the cond-mat preprint archive in order to avoid a violation of the Journals policy.
The mechanism of high temperature superconductivity in the iron-based superconductors remains an outstanding issue in condensed matter physics. The electronic structure, in particular the Fermi surface topology, is considered to play an essential role in dictating the superconductivity. Recent revelation of distinct electronic structure and possible high temperature superconductivity with a transition temperature Tc above 65 K in the single-layer FeSe films grown on the SrTiO3 substrate provides key information on the roles of Fermi surface topology and interface in inducing or enhancing superconductivity. Here we report high resolution angle-resolved photoemission measurement on the electronic structure and superconducting gap of a novel FeSe-based superconductor, (Li0.84Fe0.16)OHFe0.98Se, with a Tc at 41 K. We find that this single-phase bulk superconductor shows remarkably similar electronic behaviors to that of the superconducting single-layer FeSe/SrTiO3 film in terms of Fermi surface topology, band structure and nearly isotropic superconducting gap without nodes. These observations provide significant insights in understanding high temperature superconductivity in the single-layer FeSe/SrTiO3 film in particular, and the mechanism of superconductivity in the iron-based superconductors in general.
We use inelastic neutron scattering to study the low-energy spin excitations of 112-type iron pnictide Ca$_{0.82}$La$_{0.18}$Fe$_{0.96}$Ni$_{0.04}$As$_{2}$ with bulk superconductivity below $T_c=22$ K. A two-dimensional spin resonance mode is found around $E=$ 11 meV, where the resonance energy is almost temperature independent and linearly scales with $T_c$ along with other iron-based superconductors. Polarized neutron analysis reveals the resonance is nearly isotropic in spin space without any $L$ modulations. Due to the unique monoclinic structure with additional zigzag arsenic chains, the As $4p$ orbitals contribute to a three-dimensional hole pocket around $Gamma$ point and an extra electron pocket at $X$ point. Our results suggest that the energy and momentum distribution of spin resonance does not directly response to the $k_z$ dependence of fermiology, and the spin resonance intrinsically is a spin-1 mode from singlet-triplet excitations of the Cooper pairs in the case of weak spin-orbital coupling.
Topological insulators/semimetals and unconventional iron-based superconductors have attracted major attentions in condensed matter physics in the past 10 years. However, there is little overlap between these two fields, although the combination of topological states and superconducting states will produce more exotic topologically superconducting states and Majorana bound states (MBS), a promising candidate for realizing topological quantum computations. With the progress in laser-based spin-resolved and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) with very high energy- and momentum-resolution, we directly resolved the topological insulator (TI) phase and topological Dirac semimetal (TDS) phase near Fermi level ($E_F$) in the iron-based superconductor Li(Fe,Co)As. The TI and TDS phases can be separately tuned to $E_F$ by Co doping, allowing a detailed study of different superconducting topological states in the same material. Together with the topological states in Fe(Te,Se), our study shows the ubiquitous coexistence of superconductivity and multiple topological phases in iron-based superconductors, and opens a new age for the study of high-Tc iron-based superconductors and topological superconductivity.