6,469 research outputs found
Possible unconventional superconductivity in substituted BaFeAs revealed by magnetic pair-breaking studies
The possible existence of a sign-changing gap symmetry in
BaFeAs-derived superconductors (SC) has been an exciting topic of
research in the last few years. To further investigate this subject we combine
Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) and pressure-dependent transport measurements to
investigate magnetic pair-breaking effects on BaFeAs (
Mn, Co, Cu, and Ni) single crystals. An ESR signal, indicative of the presence
of localized magnetic moments, is observed only for Cu and Mn compounds,
which display very low SC transition temperature () and no SC,
respectively. From the ESR analysis assuming the absence of bottleneck effects,
the microscopic parameters are extracted to show that this reduction of
cannot be accounted by the Abrikosov-Gorkov pair-breaking expression for a
sign-preserving gap function. Our results reveal an unconventional spin- and
pressure-dependent pair-breaking effect and impose strong constraints on the
pairing symmetry of these materials
Site specific spin dynamics in BaFe2As2: tuning the ground state by orbital differentiation
The role of orbital differentiation on the emergence of superconductivity in
the Fe-based superconductors remains an open question to the scientific
community. In this investigation, we employ a suitable microscopic spin probe
technique, namely Electron Spin Resonance (ESR), to investigate this issue on
selected chemically substituted BaFeAs single crystals. As the
spin-density wave (SDW) phase is suppressed, we observe a clear increase of the
Fe 3 bands anisotropy along with their localization at the FeAs plane. Such
an increase of the planar orbital content interestingly occurs independently on
the chemical substitution responsible for suppressing the SDW phase. As a
consequence, the magnetic fluctuations combined with the resultant particular
symmetry of the Fe 3 bands are propitious ingredients to the emergence of
superconductivity in this class of materials.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
A New Heavy-Fermion Superconductor CeIrIn5: Relative of the Cuprates?
CeIrIn5 is a member of a new family of heavy-fermion compounds and has a
Sommerfeld specific heat coefficient of 720 mJ/mol-K2. It exhibits a bulk,
thermodynamic transition to a superconducting state at Tc=0.40 K, below which
the specific heat decreases as T2 to a small residual T-linear value.
Surprisingly, the electrical resistivity drops below instrumental resolution at
a much higher temperature T0=1.2 K. These behaviors are highly reproducible and
field-dependent studies indicate that T0 and Tc arise from the same underlying
electronic structure. The layered crystal structure of CeIrIn5 suggests a
possible analogy to the cuprates in which spin/charge pair correlations develop
well above Tc
Optical evidence for a spin-filter effect in the charge transport of
We have measured the optical reflectivity of
as a function of temperature between 1.5 and 300
and in external magnetic fields up to 7 . The slope at the onset of the
plasma edge feature in increases with decreasing temperature and
increasing field but the plasma edge itself does not exhibit the remarkable
blue shift that is observed in the binary compound . The analysis of
the magnetic field dependence of the low temperature optical conductivity
spectrum confirms the previously observed exponential decrease of the
electrical resistivity upon increasing, field-induced bulk magnetization at
constant temperature. In addition, the individual exponential magnetization
dependences of the plasma frequency and scattering rate are extracted from the
optical data.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
Magnetic and superconducting instabilities in the periodic Anderson model: an RPA stud
We study the magnetic and superconducting instabilities of the periodic
Anderson model with infinite Coulomb repulsion U in the random phase
approximation. The Neel temperature and the superconducting critical
temperature are obtained as functions of electronic density (chemical pressure)
and hybridization V (pressure). It is found that close to the region where the
system exhibits magnetic order the critical temperature T_c is much smaller
than the Neel temperature, in qualitative agreement with some T_N/T_c ratios
found for some heavy-fermion materials. In our study, all the magnetic and
superconducting physical behaviour of the system has its origin in the
fluctuating boson fields implementing the infinite on-site Coulomb repulsion
among the f-electrons.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure
Competing magnetic orders in the superconducting state of Nd-doped CeRhIn under pressure
Applied pressure drives the heavy-fermion antiferromagnet CeRhIn
towards a quantum critical point that becomes hidden by a dome of
unconventional superconductivity. Magnetic fields suppress this superconducting
dome, unveiling the quantum phase transition of local character. Here, we show
that magnetic substitution at the Ce site in CeRhIn, either by Nd
or Gd, induces a zero-field magnetic instability inside the superconducting
state. This magnetic state not only should have a different ordering vector
than the high-field local-moment magnetic state, but it also competes with the
latter, suggesting that a spin-density-wave phase is stabilized in zero field
by Nd and Gd impurities - similarly to the case of
CeNdCoIn. Supported by model calculations, we attribute
this spin-density wave instability to a magnetic-impurity driven condensation
of the spin excitons that form inside the unconventional superconducting state
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