The recent discovery of iron-based superconductors challenges the existing paradigm of high-temperature superconductivity. Owing to their unusual multi-orbital band structure, magnetism, and electron correlation, theories propose a unique sign reversed s-wave pairing state, with the order parameter changing sign between the electron and hole Fermi pockets. However, because of the complex Fermi surface topology and material related issues, the predicted sign reversal remains unconfirmed. Here we report a novel phase-sensitive technique for probing unconventional pairing symmetry in the polycrystalline iron-pnictides. Through the observation of both integer and half-integer flux-quantum transitions in composite niobium/iron-pnictide loops, we provide the first phase-sensitive evidence of the sign change of the order parameter in NdFeAsO0.88F0.12, lending strong support for microscopic models predicting unconventional s-wave pairing symmetry. These findings have important implications on the mechanism of pnictide superconductivity, and lay the groundwork for future studies of new physics arising from the exotic order in the FeAs-based superconductors.
An optical analysis reveals that the electronic correlations in the `parent' compounds of the iron pnictide superconductors are sufficiently strong to significantly impede the mobility of the electrons.
A new iron pnictide LiFeP superconductor was found. The compound crystallizes into a Cu2Sb structure containing an FeP layer showing superconductivity with maximum Tc of 6K. This is the first 111 type iron pnictide superconductor containing no arsenic. The new superconductor is featured with itinerant behavior at normal state that could helpful to understand the novel superconducting mechanism of iron pnictide compounds.
Superconductivity in the iron pnictides and chalcogenides arises at the border of antiferromagnetism, which raises the question of the role of quantum criticality. In this topical review, we describe the theoretical work that led to the prediction for a magnetic quantum critical point arising out of a competition between electronic localization and itinerancy, and the proposal for accessing it by using isoelectronic P substitution for As in the undoped iron pnictides. We go on to compile the emerging experimental evidence in support of the existence of such a quantum critical point in isoelect…
We compare the one-loop functional renormalization group results for the cuprates and the iron pnictides. Interestingly a coherent picture suggesting that antiferromagnetic correlation causes pairing for both materials emerges.
We examine the magnetic phase diagram of iron pnictides using a five band model. For the intermediate values of the interaction expected to hold in the iron pnictides, we find a metallic low moment state characterized by antiparallel orbital magnetic moments. The anisotropy of the interorbital hopping amplitudes is the key to understanding this low moment state. This state accounts for the small magnetization measured in undoped iron pnictides and leads to the strong exchange anisotropy found in neutron experiments. Orbital ordering is concomitant with magnetism and produces the large zx orbit…
The iron pnictides and the cuprates represent two families of materials, where strong antiferromagnetic correlation drives three other distinct ordering tendencies: (1) superconducting pairing, (2) Fermi surface distortion, and (3) orbital current order. We propose that (1)-(3) and the antiferromagnetic correlation are the hallmarks of a class of strongly correlated materials to which the cuprates and pnictides belong. In this paper we present the results of the functional renormalization group studies to support the above claim. In addition, we show that as a function of the interlayer hoppin…
We discuss the discrepancy between the measured optical Drude weight and band structure calculations in LaFePO and other iron-based superconductors. This discrepancy is mostly due to mass renormalization arising from electronic correlation effects.
Normal state spin dynamics of the recently discovered iron-pnictide superconductors is discussed by calculating spin structure factor S(q, omega) in an itinerant five-band model within RPA approximation. Due to the characteristic Fermi surface structure of iron-pnictide, column like response is found at (pi, 0) in extended Brillouin zone in the undoped case, which is consistent with the recent neutron scattering experiment. This indicates that the localized spin model is not necessary to explain the spin dynamics of this system. Furthermore, we show that the temperature dependence of inelastic…
Two major themes in the physics of condensed matter are quantum critical phenomena and unconventional superconductivity. These usually occur in the context of competing interactions in systems of strongly-correlated electrons. All this interesting physics comes together in the behavior of the recently discovered iron pnictide compounds that have generated enormous interest because of their moderately high-temperature superconductivity. The ubiquity of antiferromagnetic ordering in their phase diagrams naturally raises the question of the relevance of magnetic quantum criticality, but the answe…
In this review, the authors present a summary of experimental reports on newly discovered iron-based superconductors as they were known at the end of 2008. At the same time, this paper is intended to be useful for experimenters to know the current status of these superconductors. The authors introduce experimental results that reveal basic physical properties in the normal and superconducting states. The similarities and differences between iron-pnictide superconductors and other unconventional superconductors are also discussed.
We present a phenomenological theory of quasiparticle scattering and transport relaxation in the normal state of iron pnictides based on the simplified two-band model coupled via spin fluctuations. In analogy with anomalous properties of cuprates it is shown that a large and anomalous normal-state resistivity and thermopower can be interpreted as the consequence of strong coupling to spin fluctuations. The generalization to the superconducting phase is also discussed.
In the iron pnictide superconductors, theoretical calculations have consistently shown enhancements of the static magnetic susceptibility at both the stripe-type antiferromagnetic (AFM) and in-plane ferromagnetic (FM) wavevectors. However, the possible existence of FM fluctuations has not yet been examined from a microscopic point of view. Here, using $^{75}$As NMR data, we provide clear evidence for the existence of FM spin correlations in both the hole- and electron-doped BaFe$_2$As$_2$ families of iron-pnictide superconductors. These FM fluctuations appear to compete with superconductivity …
We use the results of first-principles electronic structure calculations and a strong coupling perturbation approach, together with general theoretical arguments, to illustrate the differences in super-exchange interactions between the copper-oxides and iron-pnictides. We show that the two magnetic ground states can be understood in a simple manner within the same theoretical foundation. Contrary to the emerging view that magnetic order in the iron-pnictides is of itinerant nature, we argue that the observed magnetic moment is small because of frustration introduced by the electrons of the Fe …
I point out that the observed discrepancy between the measured and calculated Drude weights in LaFePO may be caused not only by mass renormalization, but also by a DFT inaccuracy in determining the relative positions of the hole and electron band.
We study whether Fermi-surface (FS) nesting can give rise to high-temperature superconductivity in iron pnictides. Starting with ab initio construction of an effective four-orbital model, we employ the fluctuation-exchange approximation to show that FS does not necessarily favor the stripe antiferromagnetic order observed in experiments, especially for realistic electronic correlations. If superconductivity in iron pnictides is magnetically mediated and has fully-gapped sign-reversing s-wave symmetry, our results suggest that the pairing interaction does not arise only from FS nesting and exch…
Based on the five-orbital model, we study the effect of local impurity in iron pnictides, and find that the interband impurity scattering is promoted by the d-orbital degree of freedom. This fact means that the fully-gapped sign-reversing s-wave state, which is predicted by spin fluctuation theories, is very fragile against impurities. In the BCS theory, only 1% impurities with intermediate strength induce huge pair-breaking, resulting in the large in-gap state and prominent reduction in Tc, contrary to the prediction based on simple orbital-less models. The present study provides a stringent …
Josephson junctions between a $FeAs$-based superconductor with antiphase s-wave pairing and a conventional s-wave superconductor are studied. The translational invariance in a planar junction between a single crystal pnictide and an aluminum metal greatly enhances the relative weight of electron pockets in the pnictide to the critical current. In a wide doping region of the pnictide, a planar and a point contact junctions have opposite phases, which can be used to design a tri-junction ring with $π$ phase to probe the antiphase pairing.
We propose a simple way to parameterize the gap function in iron pnictides. The key idea is to use orbital representation, not band representation, and to assume real-space short-range pairing. Our parameterization reproduces fairly well the structure of gap function obtained in microscopic calculation. At the same time the present parameterization is simple enough to obtain an intuitive picture and to develop a phenomenological theory. We also discuss simplification of the treatment of the superconducting state.
We propose that impurity-induced electronic nematic state is realized above the orthorhombic structure transition temperature $T_S$ in iron-pnictide superconductors. In the presence of strong orbital fluctuations near $T_S$, it is theoretically revealed that a single impurity induces non-local orbital order with $C_2$-symmetry, consistently with recent STM/STS measurements. Each impurity-induced $C_2$ orbital order aligns along a-axis by applying tiny uniaxial pressure along b-axis. In this impurity-induced nematic phase, the resistivity shows sizable in-plane anisotropy ($ρ_b/ρ_a \sim 2$) eve…
A universal linear-temperature dependence of the uniform magnetic susceptibility has been observed in the nonmagnetic normal state of iron-pnictides. This non-Pauli and non-Curie-Weiss-like paramagnetic behavior cannot be understood within a pure itinerant picture. We argue that it results from the existence of a wide antiferromagnetic fluctuation window in which the local spin-density-wave correlations exist but the global directional order has not been established yet.
We employ the phenomenological theory of the quasiparticle relaxation based on the simplified two-band description and the spin-fluctuation induced interband coupling to analyze recent normal-state transport data in electron-doped iron pnictides, in particular the Ba(Fe_1-x Co_x)_2As_2 family. Temperature dependence of the resistivity, thermopower and the Hall constant are evaluated. It is shown that their anomalous behavior emerging from experiments can be consistently described within the same framework assuming also non-Fermi-liquid spin fluctuations.
In contrast to the claim by Yanagi et al. in Ref. [1], the development of orbital fluctuations at $q ~ 0$ due to the "orthorhombic phonon" is unable to explain the high-Tc superconductivity in iron pnictides. The reason is that the orthorhombic-phonon is acoustic with the energy $ω_q \propto q$, although the authors in Ref. [1] treated it as optical phonon ($ω_o=0.02 eV$) inconsistently.
One of the unifying concepts in the iron-pnictide superconductors, both for the mechanism of magnetic ordering and of unconventional order parameter character, has been the electron and hole Fermi surfaces that are approximately nested. Using the density functional methods that have predicted Fermi surfaces correctly in SrFe$_2$P$_2$, we find that the recently reported superconducting Sr$_2$VO$_3$FeAs, with $T_c$=37 K and no apparent competition between magnetism and superconductivity, possesses different Fermi surface geometry and character than previous classes of iron pnictides. The interve…
A 2-orbital t-J model over the square lattice that describes low-energy electronic excitations in iron-pnictide high-Tc superconductors is analyzed with Schwinger-boson-slave-fermion meanfield theory and by exact numerical diagonalization on a finite system. A quantum critical point (QCP) is identified that separates a commensurate spin-density wave (cSDW) state at strong Hund's rule coupling from a hidden half-metal state at weak Hund's rule coupling when inter-orbital hole hopping is suppressed. Low-energy spinwaves that disperse anisotropically from cSDW momenta are predicted at the QCP. Ne…
Observation of an anomalous temperature dependence of the spin susceptibility, along with a spin gap in NMR, in the quantum paramagnetic normal state of Iron Pnictides is a signature of an unusual metallic state. We argue that both these anomalous features are associated with a wide fluctuational regime dominated by dynamical, short-ranged and frustrated spin correlations in a strongly correlated metal. Using LDA+DMFT, we show that both these features can be quantitatively undertstood in the doped Fe-pnictides. We argue that such spin correlations naturally arise in a Mottness scenario, where …
We show how the general features of the electronic structure of the Fe-based high-Tc superconductors are a natural setting for a selective localization of the conduction electrons to arise. Slave-spin and Dynamical mean-field calculations support this picture and allow for a comparison of the magnetic properties with experiments.
In most magnetically-ordered iron pnictides, the magnetic moments lie in the FeAs planes, parallel to the modulation direction of the spin stripes. However, recent experiments in hole-doped iron pnictides have observed a reorientation of the magnetic moments from in-plane to out-of-plane. Interestingly, this reorientation is accompanied by a change in the magnetic ground state from a stripe antiferromagnet to a tetragonal non-uniform magnetic configuration. Motivated by these recent observations, here we investigate the origin of the spin anisotropy in iron pnictides using an itinerant microsc…
In correlated metals derived from Mott insulators, the motion of an electron is impeded by Coulomb repulsion due to other electrons. This phenomenon causes a substantial reduction in the electron's kinetic energy leading to remarkable experimental manifestations in optical spectroscopy. The high-Tc superconducting cuprates are perhaps the most studied examples of such correlated metals. The occurrence of high-Tc superconductivity in the iron pnictides puts a spotlight on the relevance of correlation effects in these materials. Here we present an infrared and optical study on single crystals of…
We describe the correlated electronic structure of a prototype Fe-pnictide superconductor, $SmO_{1-x}F_{x}FeAs$, using LDA+DMFT. Strong, multi-orbital electronic correlations generate a low-energy pseudogap in the undistorted phase, giving a bad, incoherent metal in qualitative agreement with observations. Very good semi-quantitative agreement with the experimental spectral functions is seen, and interpreted, within a correlated, multi-orbital picture. Our results show that Fe-pnictides should be understood as low-carrier density, incoherent metals, in resemblance to the underdoped cuprate sup…
Our comprehensive study on EuFe$_2$As$_2$ reveals a dramatic reduction of magnetic detwinning fields compared to other AFe$_2$As$_2$ (A = Ba, Sr, Ca) iron pnictides by indirect magneto-elastic coupling of the Eu$^{2+}$ ions. We find that only 0.1T are sufficient for persistent detwinning below the local Eu$^{2+}$ ordering; above $T_\text{Eu}$ = 19K, higher fields are necessary. Even after the field is switched off, a significant imbalance of twin domains remains constant up to the structural and electronic phase transition (190K). This persistent detwinning provides the unique possibility to s…
Electron correlations produce a rich phase diagram in the iron pnictides. Earlier theoretical studies on the correlation effect demonstrated how quantum fluctuations weaken and concurrently suppress a $C_2$-symmetric single-Q antiferromagnetic order and a nematic order. Here we examine the emergent phases near the quantum phase transition. For a $C_4$-symmetric collinear double-Q antiferromagnetic order, we show that it is accompanied by both a charge order and an enhanced nematic susceptibility. Our results provide understanding for several intriguing recent experiments in hole-doped iron ars…
X-ray emission and absorption spectroscopies are jointly used as fast probes to determine the evolution as a function of doping of the fluctuating local magnetic moments in K- and Cr- hole-doped BaFe2As2. An increase in the local moment with hole-doping is found, supporting the theoretical scenario in which a Mott insulating state that would be realized for half-filled conduction bands has an influence throughout the phase diagram of these iron-pnictides.
We show the existence of an emergent SO(6) symmetry in the low energy description of the iron pnictides. This approximate symmetry provides a unifying framework for the occurrence of spin density wave (SDW) and superconductivity (SC) in these materials. We use this symmetry to make several predictions for future experiments, including the topology of the phase diagram and the presence of various resonant modes in neutron scattering experiments in both the SC and SDW phases. We also predict the existence of a new "Orbital Density Wave" state, which competes with both SDW and SC orders.
The indirect RKKY interaction in iron pnictide and chalcogenide metals is calculated for a simplified four bands Fermi surface (FS) model. We investigate the specific multi-band features and show that distinct length scales of the RKKY oscillations appear. For the regular lattice of the local moments, the generalized RKKY interaction is defined in momentum space. We consider its momentum dependence in paramagnetic and spin density wave (SDW) phases, discuss its implications for the possible type of magnetic order and compare it to the results obtained from more realistic tight-binding type Fer…
We show that the interference between scattering by impurities and by critical spin fluctuations gives rise to anisotropic transport in the Ising-nematic state of the iron pnictides. The effect is closely related to the non-Fermi liquid behavior of the resistivity near an antiferromagnetic quantum critical point. Our theory not only explains the observed sign of the resistivity anisotropy $Δρ$ in electron doped systems, but also predicts a sign change of $Δρ$ upon sufficient hole doping. Furthermore, our model naturally addresses the changes in $Δρ$ upon sample annealing and alkaline-earth sub…
Orbital-ordering instability arising due to the intrapocket nesting is investigated for the tight-binding models of pnictides in the presence of orbital-lattice coupling. The incommensurate instabilities with small momentum, which may play an important role in the nematic-ordering transition, vary from model to model besides being more favorable in comparison to the spin-density wave instability in the absence of good interpocket nesting. We also examine the doping dependence of such instabilities. The electron-phonon coupling parameter required to induce them are compared with the first-princ…
A number of recent experiments exhibit electronic anisotropy in the iron pnictides, and there is a growing body of experimental evidence that its origin is related to orbital ordering in Fe d_{xz} and d_{yz} orbitals. We examine this problem in the parent compounds of the iron pnictides by a combination of ab initio band theory calculations, phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau theory of coupled orbital and magnetic order parameters, and a microscopic mean-field study of the Kugel-Khomskii model. We find that orbital ordering is sufficient to explain a number of key experimental observations, in p…
The interplay of structural and electronic phases in iron-based superconductors is a central theme in the search for the superconducting pairing mechanism. While electronic nematicity, defined as the breaking of four-fold symmetry triggered by electronic degrees of freedom, is competing with superconductivity, the effect of purely structural orthorhombic order is unexplored. Here, using x-ray diffraction (XRD), we reveal a new structural orthorhombic phase with an exceptionally high onset temperature ($T_\mathrm{ort} \sim 250$ K), which coexists with superconductivity ($T_\mathrm{c} = 25$ K), …
We demonstrate that strong inter-orbital interaction is very efficient to achieve superconductivity due to magnetic fluctuations in the iron pnictides. Fermi surface states that are coupled by the antiferromagnetic wave vector are often of different orbital nature, causing pair-hopping interactions between distinct Fe-3d orbitals to become important. Performing a self-consistent FLEX calculation below $T_{c}$ we determine the superconducting order parameter as function of intra- and inter-orbital couplings. We find an $s^{\pm}$-pairing state with $T_{c}\simeq80\mathrm{K}$ for realistic paramet…
We report Fe K beta x-ray emission spectroscopy study of local magnetic moments in various iron based superconductors in their paramagnetic phases. Local magnetic moments are found in all samples studied: PrFeAsO, Ba(Fe,Co)2As2, LiFeAs, Fe1+x(Te,Se), and A2Fe4Se5 (A=K, Rb, and Cs). The moment size varies significantly across different families. Specifically, all iron pnictides samples have local moments of about 1 $μ_B$/Fe, while FeTe and K2Fe4Se5 families have much larger local moments of ~2$μ_B$/Fe, ~3.3$μ_B$/Fe, respectively. In addition, we find that neither carrier doping nor temperature …
Orbital polarization and electronic correlation are two essential aspects in understanding the normal state and superconducting properties of multiorbital FeAs-based superconductors. In this Letter, we present a systematical study on the orbital polarization of iron pnictides from weak to strong Coulomb correlations within the KRSB approach. The magnetic phase diagram of the two-orbital model for LaFeAsO clearly shows that the striped antiferromagnetic metallic phase with considerable orbital polarization exists over a wide doping range. The reversal of the orbital polarization occurs in the i…
We study the orbital-dependent superconducting pairing in a five-orbital t-J1-J2 model for iron pnictides. Depending on the orbital selectivity of electron correlations and the orbital characters along the Fermi surface, the superconducting gap in an A_{1g} pairing state may exhibit anisotropy. This anisotropy varies with the degree of J1-J2 magnetic frustration. We have also calculated the dynamical spin susceptibility in the superconducting state. The frequency dependence of the susceptibility at the antiferromagnetic wavevector (π,0) shows a resonance, whose width is enhanced by the orbital…
Recent experiments in iron pnictide superconductors reveal that, as the putative magnetic quantum critical point is approached, different types of magnetic order coexist over a narrow region of the phase diagram. Although these magnetic configurations share the same wave-vectors, they break distinct symmetries of the lattice. Importantly, the highest superconducting transition temperature takes place close to this proliferation of near-degenerate magnetic states. In this paper, we employ a renormalization group calculation to show that such a behavior naturally arises due to the effects of spi…
Motivated by recent experimental detection of Neel-type ($(π,π)$) magnetic fluctuations in some iron pnictides, we study the impact of competing $(π,π)$ and $(π,0)$ spin fluctuations on the superconductivity of these materials. We show that, counter-intuitively, even short-range, weak Neel fluctuations strongly suppress the $s^{+-}$ state, with the main effect arising from a repulsive contribution to the $s^{+-}$ pairing interaction, complemented by low frequency inelastic scattering. Further increasing the strength of the Neel fluctuations leads to a low-$T_{c}$ d-wave state, with a possible …
Motivated by the close correlation between transition temperature ($T_c$) and the tetrahedral bond angle of the As-Fe-As layer observed in the iron-based superconductors, we study the interplay between spin and orbital physics of an isolated iron-arsenide tetrahedron embedded in a metallic environment. Whereas the spin Kondo effect is suppressed to low temperatures by Hund's coupling, the orbital degrees of freedom are expected to quantum mechanically quench at high temperatures, giving rise to an overscreened, non-Fermi liquid ground-state. Translated into a dense environment, this critical s…
We study the five-orbital Hubbard-Holstein model for iron pnictides with small electron-phonon interaction due to Fe-ion Einstein oscillators. Using the fluctuation-exchange (FLEX) approximation, orbital fluctuations evolve inversely proportional to the temperature, and therefore the resistivity shows linear or convex T-dependence for wide range of temperatures. We also analyze the Eliashberg gap equation, and show that s-wave superconducting state without sign reversal (s_{++}-wave state) emerges when the orbital fluctuations dominate the spin fluctuations. When both fluctuations are comparab…
We analyze how disorder affects the transition temperature $T_{c}$ of the $s^{+-}$superconducting state in the iron pnictides. The conventional wisdom is that $T_{c}$ should rapidly decrease with increasing inter-band non-magnetic impurity scattering, but we show that this behavior holds only in the overdoped region of the phase diagram. In the underdoped regime, where superconductivity emerges from a pre-existing magnetic state, disorder gives rise to two competing effects: breaking of the Cooper pairs, which tends to reduce $T_{c}$, and suppression of the itinerant magnetic order, which tend…
While the impurity-induced nanoscale electronic disorder has been extensively reported in the underdoped iron pnictides, its microscopic origins remain elusive. Recent scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) measurements reveal a dimer-type resonant structure induced by cobalt doping. These dimers are randomly distributed but uniformly aligned with the antiferromagnetic a axis. A theory of the impurity-induced quasiparticle interference patterns is presented that shows the local density of states developing an oscillatory pattern characterized by both geometry and orbital content of the {\em recon…
In iron pnictides, we find that the moderate electron-phonon interaction due to the Fe-ion oscillation can induce the critical d-orbital fluctuations, without being prohibited by the Coulomb interaction. These fluctuations give rise to the strong pairing interaction for the s-wave superconducting (SC) state without sign reversal ($s_{++}$-wave state), which is consistent with experimentally observed robustness of superconductivity against impurities. When the magnetic fluctuations due to Coulomb interaction are also strong, the SC state shows a smooth crossover from the s-wave state with sign …
In a magnetically driven electronic nematic state, an externally applied uniaxial strain rounds the nematic transition and increases the magnetic transition temperature. We study both effects in a simple classical model of the iron-pnictides expressed in terms of local SO(N) spins (with N = 3) which we solve to leading order in 1=N. The magnetic transition temperature is shown to increase linearly in response to an external strain while a sharp crossover, which is a remnant of the nematic transition, can only be identified for extremely small strain. We show that these results can reasonably a…
We study the neutron scattering spectrum in iron pnictides based on the random-phase approximation in the five-orbital model, for fully-gapped s-wave states with sign reversal (s+-) and without sign reversal (s++). In the s++ wave state, we find that a prominent hump structure appears just above the spectral gap, by taking account of the quasiparticle damping gamma due to strong electron-electron correlation: As the superconductivity develops, the reduction in gamma gives rise to the large overshoot in the spectrum above the gap. The obtained hump structure looks similar to the resonance peak …
We report a systematic crystal growth and characterization of Ca$_{1-y}$La$_{y}$Fe$_{1-x}$Ni$_{x}$As$_{2}$, the newly discovered 112-type iron-based superconductor. After substituting Fe by a small amount of Ni, bulk superconductivity is successfully obtained in high quality single crystals sized up to 6 mm. Resistivity measurements indicate common features for transport properties in this 112-type iron pnictide, suggest strong scattering from chemical dopants. Together with the superconducting transition temperature $T_c$, and the Neel temperature $T_N$ determined by the elastic neutron scatt…
Recent experimental studies have revealed several unexpected properties of Mn-doped BaFe2As2. These include extension of the stripe-like magnetic (pi,0) phase to high temperatures above a critical Mn concentration only, the presence of diffusive and weakly temperature dependent magnetic (pi,pi) checkerboard scattering, and an apparent absent structural distortion from tetragonal to orthorhombic. Here, we study the effects of magnetic impurities both below and above the Néel transition temperature within a real-space five-band model appropriate to the iron pnictides. We show how these experimen…
We report 19-F NMR investigation of the new high temperature superconductor LaFeAsO(0.89)F(0.11) (Tc ~ 28K). We demonstrate that low frequency spin fluctuations exhibit pseudo gap behavior above Tc. We also deduce the London penetration depth lambda from NMR line broadening below Tc.
We present a polarization resolved study of the low energy band structure in the optimally doped iron pnictide superconductor Ba$_{0.6}$K$_{0.4}$Fe$_2$As$_2$ (T$_c$=37K) using angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Polarization-contrasted measurements are used to identify and trace all three low energy hole-like bands predicted by local density approximation (LDA) calculations. The photoemitted electrons reveal an inconsistency with LDA-predicted symmetries along the $Γ$-X high symmetry momentum axis, due to unexpectedly strong rotational anisotropy in electron kinetics. We evaluate many-b…
Double exchange mechanism is believed to favor transport along ferromagnetic directions, the failure of which in explaining the unusual resistivity anisotropy in iron pnictides is investigated. Several factors intrinsic to the microscopic mechanism of transport in iron pnictides are identified and analyzed, including the moderate Hund's coupling, low local moment, and presence of two anisotropic degenerate orbitals xz and yz. In particular, the substantial second neighbor hoppings are found to be decisive in giving results opposite to the double exchange picture. In high temperature nonmagneti…
We study theoretically the coexistence of the spin-density-wave (SDW) and superconductivity in electron-doped iron-pnictide superconductors based on the two orbital model and Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations. The phase diagram is mapped out and the evolution of the Fermi surface as the doping varies is presented. The local density of states (LDOS) has also been calculated from low to high doping. We show that the strength of the superconducting coherent peak at the positive energy gets enhanced and the one at the negative energy is suppressed by the SDW order in the underdoped region. Several fe…
In the limit of perfect nesting, the physics of iron-pnictides is governed by the density wave formation at the zone-edge vector M. At high energies, various spin- (SDW), charge- (CDW), orbital/pocket- (PDW) density waves, and their linear combinations, all appear equally likely, unified within the unitary order parameter of U(4)XU(4) symmetry. Nesting imperfections and low-energy interactions reduce this symmetry to that of real materials. Nevertheless, the generic ground state preserves a distinct signature of its highly symmetric origins: a SDW along one axis of the iron lattice is predicte…
We study the five-orbital Hubbard model including the charge quadrupole interaction for iron pnictides. Using the fluctuation-exchange (FLEX) approximation, orbital fluctuations evolve inversely proportional to the temperature, and therefore the resistivity shows linear or convex T-dependence for wide range of temperatures. We also analyze the Eliashberg gap equation, and show that s-wave superconducting state without sign reversal (s++ -wave state) emerges when the orbital fluctuations dominate over the spin fluctuations. When both fluctuations are comparable, their competition gives rise to …
The appearance of superconductivity at ambient pressures in the undoped iron pnictide parent compound SrFe2As2 is studied experimentally using several techniques and approaches to aid in understanding the nature of this phase. Low temperature magnetization measurements of single crystals of SrFe2As2 reveal diamagnetic screening due to the onset of superconductivity below 21 K, with volume fraction estimates varying between 0 and 15 percent. The effects of heat treatment and cold-working via severe mechanical deformation on the superconducting phase found are studied, showing that superconducti…
