No Arabic abstract
We report the synthesis of a new quasi one-dimensional (1D) iron selenide. Ba9Fe3Se15 was synthesized at high temperature and high pressure of 5.5 GPa and systematically studied via structural, magnetic and transport measurements at ambient and at high-pressures. Ba9Fe3Se15 crystallizes in a monoclinic structure and consists of face-sharing FeSe6 octahedral chains along the c axis. At ambient pressure it exhibits an insulating behavior with a band gap ~460 meV and undergoes a ferrimagnet-like phase transition at 14 K. Under high pressure, a complete metallization occurs at ~29 GPa, which is accompanied by a spin state crossover from high spin (HS) state to low spin (LS) state. The LS appears for pressures P >36 GPa.
We investigate the transient electronic structure of BaFe2As2, a parent compound of iron-based superconductors, by time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. In order to probe the entire Brillouin zone, we utilize extreme ultraviolet photons and observe photoemission intensity oscillation with the frequency of the A1g phonon which is antiphase between the zone-centered hole Fermi surfaces (FSs) and zone-cornered electron FSs. We attribute the antiphase behavior to the warping in one of the zone-centered hole FSs accompanying the displacement of the pnictogen height, and find that this displacement is the same direction as that induced by substitution of P for As, where superconductivity is induced by a structural modification without carrier doping in this system.
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.
The recent discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in single-layer iron selenide has generated significant experimental interest for optimizing the superconducting properties of iron-based superconductors through the lattice modification. For simulating the similar effect by changing the chemical composition due to S doping, we investigate the superconducting properties of high-quality single crystals of FeSe$_{1-x}$S$_{x}$ ($x$=0, 0.04, 0.09, and 0.11) using magnetization, resistivity, the London penetration depth, and low temperature specific heat measurements. We show that the introduction of S to FeSe enhances the superconducting transition temperature $T_{c}$, anisotropy, upper critical field $H_{c2}$, and critical current density $J_{c}$. The upper critical field $H_{c2}(T)$ and its anisotropy are strongly temperature dependent, indicating a multiband superconductivity in this system. Through the measurements and analysis of the London penetration depth $lambda _{ab}(T)$ and specific heat, we show clear evidence for strong coupling two-gap $s$-wave superconductivity. The temperature-dependence of $lambda _{ab}(T)$ calculated from the lower critical field and electronic specific heat can be well described by using a two-band model with $s$-wave-like gaps. We find that a $d$-wave and single-gap BCS theory under the weak-coupling approach can not describe our experiments. The change of specific heat induced by the magnetic field can be understood only in terms of multiband superconductivity.
We report an inelastic neutron scattering study on the spin resonance in the bilayer iron-based superconductor CaKFe$_4$As$_4$. In contrast to its quasi-two-dimensional electron structure, three strongly $L$-dependent modes of spin resonance are found below $T_c=35$ K. The mode energies are below and linearly scale with the total superconducting gaps summed on the nesting hole and electron pockets, essentially in agreement with the results in cuprate and heavy fermion superconductors. This observation supports the sign-reversed Cooper pairing mechanism under multiple pairing channels and resolves the long-standing puzzles concerning the broadening and dispersive spin resonance peak in iron pnictides. More importantly, the triple resonant modes can be classified into odd and even symmetries with respect to the distance of Fe-Fe planes within the Fe-As bilayer unit. Thus, our results closely resemble those in the bilayer cuprates with nondegenerate spin excitations, suggesting that these two high-$T_c$ superconducting families share a common nature.
Recently, A2B3 type strong spin orbital coupling compounds such as Bi2Te3, Bi2Se3 and Sb2Te3 were theoretically predicated to be topological insulators and demonstrated through experimental efforts. The counterpart compound Sb2Se3 on the other hand was found to be topological trivial, but further theoretical studies indicated that the pressure might induce Sb2Se3 into a topological nontrivial state. Here, we report on the discovery of superconductivity in Sb2Se3 single crystal induced via pressure. Our experiments indicated that Sb2Se3 became superconductive at high pressures above 10 GPa proceeded by a pressure induced insulator to metal like transition at ~3 GPa which should be related to the topological quantum transition. The superconducting transition temperature (TC) increased to around 8.0 K with pressure up to 40 GPa while it keeps ambient structure. High pressure Raman revealed that new modes appeared around 10 GPa and 20 GPa, respectively, which correspond to occurrence of superconductivity and to the change of TC slop as the function of high pressure in conjunction with the evolutions of structural parameters at high pressures.