We report powder and single crystal neutron diffraction measurements of the magnetic order in AMnBi2 (A = Sr and Ca), two layered manganese pnictides with anisotropic Dirac fermions on a Bi square net. Both materials are found to order at TN approx 3
00 K in k = 0 antiferromagnetic structures, with ordered Mn moments at T = 10 K of approximately 3.8 muB aligned along the c axis. The magnetic structures are Neel-type within the Mn--Bi layers but the inter-layer ordering is different, being antiferromagnetic in SrMnBi2 and ferromagnetic in CaMnBi2. This allows a mean-field coupling of the magnetic order to Bi electrons in CaMnBi2 but not in SrMnBi2. We find clear evidence that magnetic order influences electrical transport. First principles calculations explain the experimental observations and suggest that the mechanism for different inter-layer ordering in the two compounds is the competition between the anteiferromagnetic superexchange and ferromagnetic double exchange carried by itinerant Bi electrons.
Additional charge carriers were introduced to the iron oxyarsenide Sr4Sc2Fe2As2O6 under a high-pressure condition, followed by measurements of electrical resistivity, Hall coefficient, and magnetic susceptibility. The host compound Sr4Sc2Fe2As2O6 sho
ws metallic conductivity down to ~200 K and turns to show a semiconducting-like conductivity accompanied by a positive magneto-resistance (22% at 70 kOe). Although the carrier density is comparable at 300 K (5.9x1021 cm-3) with that of the other Fe-based superconductors, no superconductivity appears down to 2 K. This is primarily because the net carrier density decreases over 3 orders of magnitude on cooling and additionally a possible magnetic order at ~120 K prevents carriers from pairing. The properties were altered largely by introducing the additional carriers.
We observed a large decrease of Tc by no more than 3 at.% of Zn doped to the optimized superconductor LaFeAsO0.85 (Tc = 26 K), confirmed by measurements of electrical resistivity, magnetic susceptibility, specific heat, Mossbauer spectroscopy, Hall c
oefficient, and an electron probe micro-analysis. The rate ~9 K/% is remarkably higher than observations regarding nonmagnetic impurities. The Tc suppression is likely due to pair-breaking caused by scatterings associated with highly localized electronic state of Zn doped into the Fe2As2 layer. If this is true, the Zn result well accords with the theoretical prediction that suggests a sign reversal s-wave pairing model for the Fe pnictide superconductors, unlike other nonmagnetic impurity results.
