Combining in-depth neutron diffraction and systematic bulk studies, we discover that the $\sqrt{5}\times\sqrt{5}$ Fe vacancy order with its associated block antiferromagnetic order is the ground state, with varying occupancy ratio of the iron 16i and vacancy 4d sites, across the phase-diagram of K$_{\bf x}$Fe$_{\bf 2-y}$Se$_2$. The orthorhombic order with one of the four Fe sites vacant appears only at intermediate temperature as a competing phase. The material experiences an insulator to metal crossover when the $\sqrt{5}\times\sqrt{5}$ order has highly developed. Superconductivity occurs in such a metallic phase.
Motivated by the newly-discovered intercalated iron chalcogenide superconductors, we construct a single orbital tight-binding model for topological insulators on the square lattice with a perfect vacancy superstructure. We find that such lattice structure naturally accommodates a non-vanishing geometry phase associated with the next-nearest-neighbor spin-orbit interaction. By calculating the bulk band structures and the finite stripe edge states, we show that the topological insulator phases can be tuned at certain electron fillings in a wide range of the model parameters. The possible implica…
77Se and 87Rb nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments on Rb0.74Fe1.6Se2 reveal clearly distinct spectra originating from a majority antiferromagnetic (AF) and a minority metallic-superconducting (SC) phase. The very narrow NMR line of the SC phase evidences the absence of Fe vacancies and any trace of AF order. The Rb content of the SC phase is deduced from intensity measurements identifying Rb0.3(1)Fe2Se2 as the actual composition of the SC fraction. The resulting estimate of 0:15 electrons/Fe brings this class of superconductors 245 family closer to the other Fe-based superconductor fam…
We investigate the electronic structure of the ternary iron selenide K$_{y}$% Fe$_{1.6}$Se$_{2}$ by considering the spatial symmetry of the $\sqrt{5}% \times \sqrt{5}$ vacancy ordered structure. Based on three orbitals of $% t_{2g}$, which are believed to play major physics in iron-based superconductors, an effective two-dimensional tight binding Hamiltonian is constructed with the vacancy ordered structure being explicitly included. It is shown that the constructed band model, when combined with generalized Hubbard interactions, yields a spin susceptibility which exhibits both the block-check…
Based on an effective 12-orbital tight-binding model, we examine the superconducting states induced by the antiferromagnetic fluctuations for iron-vacancy-ordered A$_{y}$Fe$_{2-x}$Se$_{2}$. It is shown that due to the broken reflection symmetry induced by the iron vacancies, new superconducting states with $C_{4h}$ symmetry emerge. In particular, we show that in the $C_{4h}$ symmetry, symmetric axes of the pairing momenta do not need to coincide with axes of the unit cell. As a result, in addition to the magnitude of the pairing gap, the relative orientation of the pairing wave function to the…
We show that the magnetic and vacancy orders in the 122 $(A_{1-y}Fe_{2-x}Se_2)$ iron-chalcogenides can be naturally derived from the $J_1-J_2-J_3$ model with $J_1$ being the ferromagnetic (FM) nearest neighbor exchange coupling and $J_{2}, J_3$ being the antiferromagnetic (AFM) next and third nearest neighbor ones respectively, previously proposed to describe the magnetism in the 11(FeTe/Se) systems. In the 11 systems, the magnetic exchange couplings are extremely frustrated in the ordered bi-collinear antiferromagnetic state so that the magnetic transition temperature is low. In the 122 syste…
In this editorial, we first give a brief survey of the field of iron-selenide superconductivity, both in the case of bulk FeSe characterized by the co-existence of superconductivity and nematic order, and in the case of electron-doped FeSe characterized by high-temperature superconductivity. We next review the 8 contributions to the Frontiers in Physics research topic "High-Tc Superconductivity in Electron-Doped Iron Selenide and Related Compounds".
Since the discovery of superconductivity in LaFePO in 2006, numerous iron-based superconductors have been identified within diverse structure families, all of which combine iron with a group-V (pnictogen) or group-VI (chalco- gen) element. Unconventional superconductivity is extremely rare among transition metal compounds outside these layered iron systems and the cuprates, and it is almost universally associated with highly anisotropic electronic properties and nearly 2D Fermi surface geometries. The iron-based intermetallic YFe$_2$Ge$_2$ features a 3D Fermi surface and a strongly enhanced lo…
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…
We report an unusual persistence of superconductivity against high magnetic fields in the iron chalcogenide film FeTe:O$_{x}$ below ~ 2.5 K. Instead of saturating like a mean-field behavior with a single order parameter, the measured low-temperature upper critical field increases progressively, suggesting a large supply of superconducting states accessible via magnetic field or low-energy thermal fluctuations. We demonstrate that superconducting states of finite momenta can be realized within the conventional theory, despite its questionable applicability. Our findings reveal a fundamental cha…
Study of superconductivity in layered iron-based materials was initiated in 2006 by Hosono's group, and boosted in 2008 by the superconducting transition temperature, Tc, of 26 K in LaFeAsO1-xFx. Since then, enormous researches have been done on the materials, with Tc reaching as high as 55 K. Here, we review briefly experimental and theoretical results on atomic and electronic structures and magnetic and superconducting properties of FeAs-based superconductors and related compounds. We seek for clues for unconventional superconductivity in the materials.
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.
The electronic structure of the vacancy-ordered K$_{0.5}$Fe$_{1.75}$Se$_2$ iron-selenide compound (278 phase) is studied using the first-principles density functional method. The ground state of the 278 phase is stripe-like antiferromagnetic, and its bare electron susceptibility shows a large peak around $(π, π)$ in the folded Brillouin zone. Near Fermi level, the density of states are dominated by the Fe-3d orbitals, and both electron-like and hole-like Fermi surfaces appear in the Brillouin zone. Unfolded band structure shows limited similarities to a hole doped 122 phase. With 0.1e electron…
We study the superconducting instability mediated by spin fluctuations in the Eliashberg theory for a minimal two-band model of iron-based superconductors. While antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations can drive superconductivity (SC) as is well established, we find that spin fluctuations necessarily contain a contribution to suppress SC even though SC can eventually occur at lower temperatures. This self-restraint effect stems from a general feature of the spin-fluctuation mechanism, namely the repulsive pairing interaction, which leads to phase frustration of the pairing gap and consequently the…
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…
Superconductivity above 25K, and possibly above 40K, has recently been discovered in $LaO_{1-x}F_xFeAs$ and related compounds. We propose that this is another example of the mechanism of hole superconductivity at play. This requires the existence of hole carriers at the Fermi energy, which appears to contradict current observations. We propose that two-band conduction is taking place in these materials, that the negative ion $As^{-3}$ plays a key role, and that superconductivity is non-phononic and driven by pairing and undressing of heavily dressed hole carriers to lower their kinetic energy.…
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…
The ternary iron arsenide BaFe2As2 becomes superconducting by hole doping, which was achieved by partial substitution of the barium site with potassium. We have discovered bulk superconductivity up to Tc = 38 K in (Ba1-xKx)Fe2As2 with x = 0.4. The parent compound BaFe2As2 as well as KFe2As2 both crystallize in the tetragonal ThCr2Si2-type structure, which consists of (FeAs)- iron arsenide layers separated by barium or potassium ions. BaFe2As2 is a poor metal and exhibits a SDW anomaly at 140 K. By substituting Ba2+ for K+ ions we have introduced holes in the (FeAs)- layers, which suppress the …
We report the results of electrical and magnetic properties on two new compounds, K0.8Fe1.7S2 and K0.8Fe1.7SeS, both having similar structures to newly discovered superconducting K0.8Fe1.7Se2. K0.8Fe1.7S2 exhibits a semiconductor-like electrical property and undergoes an anti-ferromagnetic transition at about 260 K. Upon replacing half of S with Se, K0.8Fe1.7SSe becomes a superconductor at 25 K, implying the superconductivity evolves from a Mott AFM state in Fe-Se based superconductors.
Iron-base superconductors exhibits features of systems where the Fulde-Ferrel-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phase, a superconducting state with non-zero total momentum of Cooper pairs, is actively sought. Experimental and theoretical evidence points strongly to the FFLO phase in these materials above the Pauli limit. In this article we discuss the ground state of iron-base superconductors near the critical magnetic field and the full $h-T$ phase diagram for pnictides in case of intra-band pairing, in a three-band model with $s_{\pm}$ symmetry.
We perform a microscopic theoretical study of the generic properties of competing magnetic phases in iron pnictides. As a function of electron filling and temperature, the magnetic stripe (single-Q) order forms a dome, but competing non-collinear and non-uniform double-Q phases exist at the foot of the dome in agreement with recent experiments. We compute and compare the electronic properties of the different magnetic phases, investigate the role of competing superconductivity, and show how disorder may stabilize double-Q order. Superconductivity is shown to compete more strongly with double-Q…
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 …
We have performed high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy of iron-chalcogenide superconductor Fe1.03Te0.7Se0.3 (Tc = 13 K) to investigate the electronic structure relevant to superconductivity. We observed a hole- and an electron-like Fermi surfaces at the Brillouin zone center and corner, respectively, which are nearly nested by the Q~(pi, pi) wave vector. We do not find evidence for the nesting instability with Q~(pi+delta, 0) reminiscent of the antiferromagnetic order in the parent compound Fe1+yTe. We have observed an isotropic superconducting gap along the hole-like Ferm…
Under the assumption that superconducting pairing is driven by local d-p hybridization, we show that the superconducting state in iron-based superconductors is classified as an odd parity s-wave spin-singlet pairing state in a single trilayer FeAs/Se, the building block of the materials. In a low energy effective model with only d-orbitals in an iron square bipartite lattice, the superconducting order parameter in this state is a combination of a s-wave normal pairing between two sublattices and a s-wave $η$-pairing within the sublattices. Parity conservation was violated in proposed supercond…
We investigated the evolution of the temperature-composition phase diagram of Fe$_{1+y}$Te upon Se substitution. In particular, the effect of Se substitution on the two-step, coupled magneto-structural transition in Fe$_{1+y}$Te single crystals is investigated. To this end, the nominal Fe excess was kept at $y$ = 0.12. For low Se concentrations, the two magneto-structural transitions displayed a tendency to merge. In spite of the high Fe-content, superconductivity emerges for Se concentrations, $x \geq$ 0.1. We present a temperature-composition phase diagram to demonstrate the interplay of str…
The superconducting order parameter in the iron-chalcogenide superconductor FeTe$_{0.55}$Se$_{0.45}$ ($T_\textrm{c}$ = 14.2 K) is investigated by point-contact Andreev reflection spectroscopy. The energy gap magnitude (3.8 meV at 1.70 K) and temperature dependence as extracted from the Andreev conductance spectra reveal strong-coupling superconductivity and is consistent with $s$-wave order parameter symmetry. No clear evidence for multiple order parameters or interference from multiple bands is observed. A conductance enhancement persists above $T_\textrm{c}$ to $\sim 18-20$ K and possible or…
Iron-based superconductors Ba0.7Rb0.3Fe2As2 and CaFe1.92Co0.08As2 of the '122' family have been investigated by means of the 14.41-keV Moessbauer transition in 57Fe versus temperature ranging from the room temperature till 4.2 K. A comparison is made with the previously investigated parent compounds BaFe2As2 and CaFe2As2. It has been found that Moessbauer spectra of these superconductors are composed of the magnetically split component due to development of spin density wave (SDW) and non-magnetic component surviving even at lowest temperatures. The latter component is responsible for supercon…
We report Hall measurement of the normal state in K- and Co-doped BaFe$_2$As$_2$, as well NaFe$_{1-x}$Co$_x$As. We found that a power-law temperature dependence of Hall angle, cot$θ_{\rm H}$$\propto$ $T^β$, prevails in normal state with temperature range well above the structural, spin-density-wave and superconducting transitions for the all samples with various doping levels. The power $β$ is nearly 4 for the parent compounds and the heavily underdoped samples, while around 3 for the superconducting samples. The $β$ suddenly changes from 4 to 3 at a doping level that is close to the emergence…
The Ru doping effect on the Dirac cone states is investigated in iron pnictide superconductors Ba(Fe$_{1-x}$Ru$_x$As)$_2$ using the transverse magnetoresistance (MR) measurements as a function of temperature. The linear development of MR against magnetic field $B$ is observed for $x$ = 0 - 0.244 at low temperatures below the antiferromagnetic transition. The $B$-linear MR is interpreted in terms of the quantum limit of the Dirac cone states by using the model proposed by Abrikosov. An intriguing evidence is shown that the Dirac cone state persists on the electronic phase diagram where the anti…
The precise nature of unconventional superconductivity in Iron Pnictides is presently a hotly debated issue. Here, using insights from normal state electronic structure and symmetry arguments, we show how an unconventional SC emerges from the bad metal "normal" state. Short-ranged, multi-band spin- and charge correlations generates nodeless SC in the active planar $d_{xz,yz}$ bands, and an inter-band proximity effect induces out-of-plane gap nodes in the passive $d_{3z^{2}-r^{2}}$ band. While very good quantitative agreement with various key observations in the SC state and reconciliation with…
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 …
We present a high-pressure NMR study of the overdoped iron pnictide superconductor NaFe$_{0.94}$Co$_{0.06}$As. The low-energy antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations in the normal state, manifest as the Curie-Weiss upturn in the spin-lattice relaxation rate $1/^{75}T_1T$, first increase strongly with pressure but fall again at $P > P_{\rm opt} =$ 2.2 GPa. Neither long-ranged magnetic order nor a structural phase transition is encountered up to 2.5 GPa. The superconducting transition temperature $T_c$ shows a pressure-dependence identical to the spin fluctuations. Our observations demonstrate that …
We report the results of $^{77}$Se--nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in $α$-FeSe, which exhibits a similar crystal structure to the LaFeAsO$_{1-x}$F$_x$ superconductor and shows superconductivity at 8 K. The nuclear-spin lattice relaxation rate $1/T_1$ shows $T^3$ behavior below the superconducting transition temperature $T_c$ without a coherence peak. The $T_1T=$ const. behavior, indicative of the Fermi liquid state, can be seen in a wide temperature range above $T_c$. The superconductivity in $α$-FeSe is also an unconventional one as well as LaFeAsO$_{1-x}$F$_x$ and related materials. The Fe…
In contrast to conventional superconducting (SC) materials, superconductivity in high-temperature superconductors (HTCs) usually emerges in the presence of other fluctuating orders with similar or higher energy scales, thus instigating debates over their relevance for the SC pairing mechanism. In iron-based superconductors (IBSCs), local orbital fluctuations have been proposed to be directly responsible for the structural phase transition and closely related to the observed giant magnetic anisotropy and electronic nematicity. However, whether superconductivity can emerge from, or even coexist …
We study LiFeP, LiFeAs and NaFeAs in their paramagnetic metallic phase including dynamical electronic correlations within a density functional theory + slave-spin mean-field framework. The three compounds are found to lie next to the crossover between a normal and a Hund's metal, where a region of enhanced electronic compressibility that may boost superconductivity is systematically present in this type of systems. We find that LiFeP lies in the normal metallic regime, LiFeAs at the crossover, and NaFeAs is in the Hund's metal regime, which possibly explains the different experimental trends f…
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…
Heavy-fermion superconductors are prime candidates for novel electron-pairing states due to the spin-orbital coupled degrees of freedom and electron correlations. Superconductivity in CeCu$_2$Si$_2$ discovered in 1979, which is a prototype of unconventional (non-BCS) superconductors in strongly correlated electron systems, still remains unsolved. Here we provide the first report of superconductivity based on the advanced first-principles theoretical approach. We find that the promising candidate is an $s_\pm$-wave state with loop-shaped nodes on the Fermi surface, different from the widely exp…
The present article reviews recent experimental investigations of spin dynamics in iron-based superconductors and their parent compounds by means of inelastic neutron scattering. It mainly focuses on the most contemporary developments in this field, pertaining to the observations of magnetic resonant modes in new superconductors, spin anisotropy of low-energy magnetic fluctuations that has now been observed in a wide range of chemical compositions and doping levels, as well as their momentum-space anisotropy incurred by the spin-nematic order. The implications of these new findings for our und…
High-temperature superconductivity remains arguably the largest outstanding enigma of condensed matter physics. The discovery of iron-based high-temperature superconductors has renewed the importance of understanding superconductivity in materials susceptible to magnetic order and fluctuations. Intriguingly they show magnetic fluctuations reminiscent of the superconducting (SC) cuprates, including a 'resonance' and an 'hour-glass' shaped dispersion, which provide an opportunity to new insight to the coupling between spin fluctuations and superconductivity. Here we report inelastic neutron scat…
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 …
One of the central tenets of conventional theories of superconductivity, including most models proposed for the recently discovered iron-pnictide superconductors, is the notion that only electronic excitations with energies comparable to the superconducting energy gap are affected by the transition. Here we report the results of a comprehensive spectroscopic ellipsometry study of a high-quality crystal of superconducting $\textrm{Ba}_{0.68}\textrm{K}_{0.32}\textrm{Fe}_2\textrm{As}_2$ that challenges this notion. We observe a superconductivity-induced suppression of an absorption band at an ene…
We have carried out a systematic study of the PbO-type compound FeSe_{1-x}Te_x (x = 0~1), where Te substitution effect on superconductivity is investigated. It is found that superconducting transition temperature reaches a maximum of Tc=15.2K at about 50% Te substitution. The pressure-enhanced Tc of FeSe0.5Te0.5 is more than 10 times larger than that of FeSe. Interestingly, FeTe is no longer superconducting. A low temperature structural distortion changes FeTe from triclinic symmetry to orthorhombic symmetry. We believe that this structural change breaks the magnetic symmetry and suppresses su…
Superconductivity is a remarkably widespread phenomenon observed in most metals cooled down to very low temperatures. The ubiquity of such conventional superconductors, and the wide range of associated critical temperatures, is readily understood in terms of the celebrated Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory. Occasionally, however, unconventional superconductors are found, such as the iron-based materials, which extend and defy this understanding in new and unexpected ways. In the case of the iron-based superconductors, this includes a new appreciation of the ways in which the presence of m…
High-transition temperature (high-$T_c$) superconductivity in the iron pnictides/chalcogenides emerges from the suppression of the static antiferromagnetic order in their parent compounds, similar to copper oxides superconductors. This raises a fundamental question concerning the role of magnetism in the superconductivity of these materials. Neutron scattering, a powerful probe to study the magnetic order and spin dynamics, plays an essential role in determining the relationship between magnetism and superconductivity in high-$T_c$ superconductors. The rapid development of modern neutron time-…
The superconducting series, Fe(Te,Se), has a complex structural and magnetic phase diagram that is dependent on composition and occupancy of a secondary interstitial Fe site. In this letter, we show that superconductivity in Fe1+xTe0.7Se0.3 can be enhanced by topotactic deintercalation of the interstitial iron, demonstrating the competing roles of the two iron sites. Neutron diffraction reveals a flattening of the Fe(Te,Se)4 tetrahedron on Fe removal of iron and an increase in negative thermal expansion within the ab plane that correlates with increased lattice strain. Inelastic neutron scatte…
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…
Iron-based superconductors have been found to exhibit an intimate interplay of orbital, spin, and lattice degrees of freedom, dramatically affecting their low-energy electronic properties, including superconductivity. Albeit the precise pairing mechanism remains unidentified, several candidate interactions have been suggested to mediate the superconducting pairing, both in the orbital and in the spin channel. Here, we employ optical spectroscopy (OS), angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), ab initio band-structure, and Eliashberg calculations to show that nearly optimally doped NaF…
Berg, Metlitski and Sachdev, Science 338, 1606 (2012), have shown that the exchange of hidden spin fluctuations by conduction electrons with two orbitals can result in high-temperature superconductivity in copper-oxide materials. We introduce a similar model for high-temperature iron-selenide superconductors that are electron doped. Conduction electrons carry the minimal 3d xz and 3d yz iron-atom orbitals. Low-energy hidden spin fluctuations at the checkerboard wavevector Q_AF result from nested Fermi surfaces at the center and at the corner of the unfolded (one-iron) Brillouin zone. Magnetic …
We report self-consistent calculations of the gap symmetry for the iron-based high-temperature superconductors using realistic small-q phonon mediated pairing potentials and four-band energy dispersions. When both electron and hole Fermi surface pockets are present, we obtain the nodeless $s_\pm$ state that was first encountered in a spin-fluctuations mechanism picture. Nodal gap structures such as $d_{x^2-y^2}$ and $s_\pm+d_{x^2-y^2}$ and even a p-wave triplet state, are accessible upon doping within our phononic mechanism. Our results resolve the conflict between phase sensitive experiments …
High pressure electrical resistivity and x-ray diffraction experiments have been performed on Fe single crystals. The crystallographic investigation provides direct evidence that in the martensitic $bcc \rightarrow hcp$ transition at 14 GPa the $\lbrace 110\rbrace_{bcc}$ become the $\lbrace 002\rbrace_{hcp}$ directions. During a pressure cycle, resistivity shows a broad hysteresis of 6.5 GPa, whereas superconductivity, observed between 13 and 31 GPa, remains unaffected. Upon increasing pressure an electronic instability, probably a quantum critical point, is observed at around 19 GPa and, clos…
We studied effect of non-magnetic and magnetic impurities on superconductivity in Lu$_2$Fe$_3$Si$_5$ by small amount substitution of the Lu site, which investigated structural, magnetic, and electrical properties of non-magnetic (Lu$_{1-x}$Sc$_x$)$_2$Fe$_3$Si$_5$, (Lu$_{1-x}$Y$_x$)$_2$Fe$_3$Si$_5$, and magnetic (Lu$_{1-x}$Dy$_x$)$_2$Fe$_3$Si$_5$. The rapid depression of $T_c$ by non-magnetic impurities in accordance with the increase of residual resistivity reveals the strong pair breaking dominated by disorder. We provide compelling evidence for the sign reversal of the superconducting order …
To understand the interplay between nematic fluctuation and superconductivity in iron-based superconductors, we performed a systematic study of the realistic two-orbital Hubbard model by using the constrained-path quantum Monte Carlo method. Our numerical results showed that the on-site nematic interaction induces a strong enhancement of nematic fluctuations at various momentums, especially at ($π$,$π$). Simultaneously, it was found that the on-site nematic interaction suppresses the ($π$,0)/(0,$π$) antiferromagnetic order and long-range electron pairing correlations for dominant pairing chann…
We investigate interplay between magnetic fluctuations and superconductivity in the effective five-band Hubbard model for iron-oxypnictide superconductors on the basis of the fluctuation-exchange approximation. As for the normal-state properties, we find the pseudogap behavior in the NMR relaxation rate and the spectral weight in the electron-doped region, while we cannot find such behavior in the hole-doped region. The pseudogap behavior originates from the band structure effect, that is, existence of high density of states just below the Fermi level. Solving the superconducting Eliashberg eq…
The electronic states of the Fe2As2 plane in iron-based superconductors are investigated on the basis of the two-dimensional 16-band d-p model which includes the Coulomb interaction on a Fe site: the intra- and inter-orbital direct terms U and U', the Hund's coupling J and the pair-transfer J'. Using the random phase approximation (RPA), we obtain the magnetic phase diagram including the stripe and the incommensurate order on the U'-J plane. We also solve the superconducting gap equation within the RPA and find that, for large J, the most favorable pairing symmetry is extended s-wave whose ord…
The high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconductivity discovered recently in iron pnictides is analyzed within a perturbation theory. Specifically, the probable pairing symmetry, the doping dependence of the transition temperature and the pairing mechanism are studied by solving the Eliashberg equation for multi-band (2- and 5-band) Hubbard models with realistic electronic structures. The effective pairing interaction is expanded perturbatively in the on-site Coulomb integrals up to third order. Our perturbative weak-coupling approach shows that sufficiently large eigenvalues of the Elia…
The in-plane thermal conductivity $κ$ of the iron selenide superconductor FeSe$_x$ ($T_c$ = 8.8 K) were measured down to 120 mK and up to 14.5 T ($\simeq 3/4 H_{c2}$). In zero field, the residual linear term $κ_0/T$ at $ T \to 0$ is only about 16 $μ$W K$^{-2}$ cm$^{-1}$, less than 4% of its normal state value. Such a small $κ_0/T$ does not support the existence of nodes in the superconducting gap. More importantly, the field dependence of $κ_0/T$ in FeSe$_x$ is very similar to that in NbSe$_2$, a typical multi-gap s-wave superconductor. We consider our data as strong evidence for multi-gap nod…
Triplet pairing, orbital selectivity and correlations in Iron-based superconductors
University of Cincinnati（辛辛那提大学）；Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung（马克斯·普朗克固体研究所）；Rutgers University（罗格斯大学）；Royal Holloway, University of London（伦敦大学皇家霍洛威学院）
The iron oxyarsenide TbFeAsO0.85 was synthesized by a high-pressure method. A high-quality polycrystalline sample was obtained and characterized by measurements of magnetic susceptibility and electrical resistivity. Bulk superconductivity with Tc of 42 K was clearly established without an F doping usually conducted to tune on superconductivity in the iron oxypnictide.
The surprising discovery of superconductivity in layered iron-based materials, with transition temperatures climbing as high as 55 K, has lead to thousands of publications on this subject over the past two years. While there is general consensus on the unconventional nature of the Cooper pairing state of these systems, several central questions remain - including the role of magnetism, the nature of chemical and structural tuning, and the resultant pairing symmetry - and the search for universal properties and principles continues. Here we review the progress of research on iron-based supercon…
We investigate the chemical substitution of group 5 into BaFe2As2 (122) iron arsenide, in the effort to understand why Fe-site hole doping of this compound (e.g., using group 5 or 6) does not yield bulk superconductivity. We find an increase in c-lattice parameter of the BaFe2As2 with the substitution of V, Nb, or Ta; the reduction in c predicts the lack of bulk superconductivity [1] that is confirmed here through transport and magnetization results. However, our spectroscopy measurements find a coexistence of antiferromagnetic and local superconducting nanoscale regions in V-122, observed for…
The ground state of K$_{0.8+x}$Fe$_{1.6+y}$Se$_2$ and other iron-based selenide superconductors are doped antiferromagnetic semiconductors. There are well defined iron local moments whose energies are separated from those of conduction electrons by a large band gap in these materials. We propose that the low energy physics of this system is governed by a model Hamiltonian of interacting electrons with on-site ferromagnetic exchange interactions and inter-site superexchange interactions. We have derived the effective pairing potential of electrons under the linear spin-wave approximation and sh…
