ABSTRACT
We present a detailed study of the electrical transport properties of a recently discovered iron-based superconductor: Sm4Fe2As2Te0.72O2.8F1.2. We followed the temperature dependence of the upper critical field by resistivity measurement of single crystals in magnetic fields up to 16 T, oriented along the two main crystallographic directions. This material exhibits a zero-temperature upper critical field of 90 T and 65 T parallel and perpendicular to the Fe2As2 planes, respectively. An unprecedented superconducting magnetic anisotropy γH=H(c2)(ab)/H(c2)(c) ~ 14 is observed near Tc, and it decreases at lower temperatures as expected in multiband superconductors. Direct measurement of the electronic anisotropy was performed on microfabricated samples, showing a value of ρ(c)/ρ(ab)(300K) ~ 5 that rises up to 19 near Tc . Finally, we have studied the pressure and temperature dependence of the in-plane resistivity. The critical temperature decreases linearly upon application of hydrostatic pressure (up to 2 GPa) similarly to overdoped cuprate superconductors. The resistivity shows saturation at high temperatures, suggesting that the material approaches the Mott-Ioffe-Regel limit for metallic conduction. Indeed, we have successfully modelled the resistivity in the normal state with a parallel resistor model that is widely accepted for this state. All the measured quantities suggest strong pressure dependence of the density of states.
ABSTRACT
Iron-based superconductors could be useful for electricity distribution and superconducting magnet applications because of their relatively high critical current densities and upper critical fields. SmFeAsO0.8F0.15 is of particular interest as it has the highest transition temperature among these materials. Here we show that by introducing a low density of correlated nano-scale defects into this material by heavy-ion irradiation, we can increase its critical current density to up to 2 × 107 A cm⻲ at 5 K--the highest ever reported for an iron-based superconductor--without reducing its critical temperature of 50 K. We also observe a notable reduction in the thermodynamic superconducting anisotropy, from 8 to 4 upon irradiation. We develop a model based on anisotropic electron scattering that predicts that the superconducting anisotropy can be tailored via correlated defects in semimetallic, fully gapped type II superconductors.
ABSTRACT
We probe the local quasiparticles density of states in micron-sized SmFeAsO(1-x)F(x) single crystals by means of scanning tunnelling spectroscopy. Spectral features resemble those of cuprates, particularly a dip-hump-like structure developed at energies larger than the gap that can be ascribed to the coupling of quasiparticles to a collective mode, quite likely a resonant spin mode. The energy of the collective mode revealed in our study decreases when the pairing strength increases. Our findings support spin-fluctuation-mediated pairing in pnictides.
ABSTRACT
We use femtosecond spectroscopy to investigate the quasiparticle relaxation and low-energy electronic structure in a nearly optimally doped pnictide superconductor with T{c}=49.5 K. Multiple relaxation processes are evident, with distinct superconducting state quasiparticle recombination dynamics exhibiting a T-dependent superconducting gap, and a clear "pseudogaplike" feature with an onset above 180 K indicating the existence of a temperature-independent gap of magnitude Delta{PG}=61+/-9 meV above T{c}. Both the superconducting and pseudogap components show saturation as a function of fluence with distinct saturation fluences 4 and 40 microJ/cm{2}, respectively.