No Arabic abstract
The experimental transport scattering rate was determined for a wide range of optimally doped transition metal-substituted FeAs-based compounds with the ThCr2Si2 (122) crystal structure. The maximum transition temperature Tc for several Ba-, Sr-, and Ca-based 122 systems follows a universal rate of suppression with increasing scattering rate indicative of a common pair-breaking mechanism. Extraction of standard pair-breaking parameters puts a limit of sim26 K on the maximum Tc for all transition metal-substituted 122 systems, in agreement with experimental observations, and sets a critical scattering rate of 1.5x10^14 s^-1 for the suppression of the superconducting phase. The observed critical scattering rate is much weaker than that expected for a sign-changing order parameter, providing important constraints on the nature of the superconducting gap in the 122 family of iron-based superconductors.
Insight into the electronic structure of the pnictide family of superconductors is obtained from quantum oscillation measurements. Here we review experimental quantum oscillation data that reveal a transformation from large quasi-two dimensional electron and hole cylinders in the paramagnetic overdoped members of the pnictide family to significantly smaller three-dimensional Fermi surface sections in the antiferromagnetic parent members, via a potential quantum critical point at which an effective mass enhancement is observed. Similarities with the Fermi surface evolution from the overdoped to the underdoped normal state of the cuprate superconducting family are discussed, along with the enhancement in antiferromagnetic correlations in both these classes of materials, and the potential implications for superconductivity.
Iron-based superconductivity develops near an antiferromagnetic order and out of a bad metal normal state, which has been interpreted as originating from a proximate Mott transition. Whether an actual Mott insulator can be realized in the phase diagram of the iron pnictides remains an open question. Here we use transport, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and neutron scattering to demonstrate that NaFe$_{1-x}$Cu$_x$As near $xapprox 0.5$ exhibits real space Fe and Cu ordering, and are antiferromagnetic insulators with the insulating behavior persisting above the Neel temperature, indicative of a Mott insulator. Upon decreasing $x$ from $0.5$, the antiferromagnetic ordered moment continuously decreases, yielding to superconductivity around $x=0.05$. Our discovery of a Mott insulating state in NaFe$_{1-x}$Cu$_x$As thus makes it the only known Fe-based material in which superconductivity can be smoothly connected to the Mott insulating state, highlighting the important role of electron correlations in the high-$T_{rm c}$ superconductivity.
Based on a two-band model, we study the electronic Raman scattering intensity in both normal and superconducting states of iron-pnictide superconductors. For the normal state, due to the match or mismatch of the symmetries between band hybridization and Raman vertex, it is predicted that overall $B_{1g}$ Raman intensity should be much weaker than that of the $B_{2g}$ channel. Moreover, in the non-resonant regime, there should exhibit a interband excitation peak at frequency $omegasimeq 7.3 t_1 (6.8t_1)$ in the $B_{1g}$ ($B_{2g}$) channel. For the superconducting state, it is shown that $beta$-band contributes most to the $B_{2g}$ Raman intensity as a result of multiple effects of Raman vertex, gap symmetry, and Fermi surface topology. Both extended $s$- and $d_{xy}$-wave pairings in the unfolded BZ can give a good description to the reported $B_{2g}$ Raman data [Muschler {em et al.}, Phys. Rev. B. {bf 80}, 180510 (2009).], while $d_{x^2-y^2}$-wave pairing in the unfolded BZ seems to be ruled out.
We report theoretical and experimental results on transition metal pnictide WP. The theoretical outcomes based on tight-binding calculations and density functional theory indicate that WP exhibits the nonsymmorphic symmetries and is an anisotropic three-dimensional superconductor. This conclusion is supported by magnetoresistance experimental data as well as by the investigation of the superconducting fluctuations of the conductivity in the presence of a magnetic external field, both underlining a three dimensional behavior.
The theoretical understanding of the nematic state of iron-based superconductors and especially of FeSe is still a puzzling problem. Although a number of experiments calls for a prominent role of local correlations and place iron superconductors at the entrance of a Hund metal state, the effect of the electronic correlations on the nematic state has been theoretically poorly investigated. In this work we study the nematic phase of iron superconductors accounting for local correlations, including the effect of the Hunds coupling. We show that Hunds physics strongly affects the nematic properties of the system. It severely constraints the precise nature of the feasible orbital-ordered state and induces a differentiation in the effective masses of the zx=yz orbitals in the nematic phase. The latter effect leads to distinctive signatures in different experimental probes, so far overlooked in the interpretation of experiments. As notable examples the splittings between zx and yz bands at Gamma and M points are modified, with important consequences for ARPES measurements.