G. R. Stewart

Specific heat versus field in the 30 K superconductor BaFe2(As0.7P0.3)2

We report specific heat measurements on the Fe-based superconductor BaFe2(As0.7P0.3)2, a material on which previous penetration depth, NMR, and thermal conductivity measurements have observed a high density of low-energy excitations, which have been interpreted in terms of order parameter nodes. Within the resolution of our measurements, the low temperature limiting C/T is found to be linear in field, i.e. we find no evidence for a Volovik effect associated with nodal quasiparticles in either the clean or dirty limit. We discuss possible reasons for this apparent contradiction.

Specific heat to Hc2: Evidence for nodes or deep minima in the superconducting gap of underdoped and overdoped Ba(Fe1–xCox)₂As₂

Low-temperature specific heat, C, in magnetic fields up to Hc2 is reported for underdoped Ba(Fe₀.₉₅₅Co₀.₀₄₅)₂As₂ (Tc = 8 K) and for three overdoped samples Ba(Fe₁₋xCox)₂As₂ (x = 0.103, 0.13, and 0.15; Tc = 17.2, 16.5, and 11.7 K, respectively). Previous measurements of thermal conductivity (as a function of temperature and field) and penetration depth on comparable-composition samples gave some disagreement as to whether there was fully gapped/nodal behavior in the under-/overdoped materials, respectively. The present work shows that the measured behavior of the specific heat γ (∝C/T as T → 0, i.e., a measure of the electronic density of states at the Fermi energy) as a function of field approximately obeys γ ∝ H0.5±0.1, similar to the Volovik effect for nodal superconductors, for both the underdoped and the most overdoped Co samples. However, for the two overdoped compositions x = 0.103 and 0.13, the low-field (H ≤ 10 T) data show a Volovik-like behavior of γ ∝ H0.3–0.4, followed by an inflection point, followed at higher fields by γ ∝ H¹. We argue that, within the two-band theory of superconductivity, an inflection point may occur if the interband coupling is dominant.

Unusual sensitivity of superconductivity to strain in iron-based 122 superconductors

Co-doped BaFe2As2 has been previously shown to have an unusually significant improvement of Tc (up to 2 K, or almost 10%) with annealing 1-2 weeks at 700 or 800 C, where such annealing conditions are insufficient to allow significant atomic diffusion. While confirming similar behavior in optimally Co-doped SrFe2As2 samples, the influence on Tc of strain induced by grinding to ~50 micron sized particles, followed by pressing the powder into a pellet using 10 kbar pressure, was found to increase the annealed transition width of 1.5 K by approximately a factor of ten. Also, the bulk discontinuity in the specific heat at Tc, deltaC, on the same pellet sample was completely suppressed by grinding. This evidence for a strong sensitivity of superconductivity to strain was used to optimize single crystal growth of Co-doped BaFe2As2. This strong dependence (both positive via annealing and negative via grinding) of superconductivity on strain in these two iron based 122 structure superconductors is compared to the unconventional heavy Fermion superconductor UPt3, where grinding is known to completely suppress superconductivity, and to recent reports of strong sensitivity of Tc to damage induced by electron-irradiation-induced point defects in other 122 structure iron-based superconductors, Ba(Fe0.76Ru0.24)2As2 and Ba1-xKxFe2As2. Both the electron irradiation and the introduction of strain by grinding are believed to only introduce non-magnetic defects, and argue for unconventional superconducting pairing.

Specific-heat discontinuityΔCvs.Tcin annealed Ba(Fe1−xCox)2As2

The low temperature specific heat of annealed single crystal samples of Ba(Fe1-xCox)2As2 with compositions spanning the entire superconducting phase diagram was measured. Effort was made to discover the best annealing schedule to maximize Tc and minimize transition width in these samples. Values of deltaC/Tc normalized to 100% superconducting volume fractions varied proportionally to Tc^alpha. Within a rather narrow error bar of +-0.15, the exponent alpha was the same (approximately 2) over a range of compositions (0.055 < x < 0.15) around the optimal concentration, x=0.08, where Tc is the maximum in the phase diagram. Thus, whether the superconductivity was coexistent with magnetism (underdoped) or not (overdoped) did not affect the non-BCS variation (alpha nearly 2 instead of 0.8-0.9 for BCS superconductors) of deltaC/Tc with Tc. The annealed samples in the present work, with increased deltaC/Tc and Tc values compared to previous results for the Ba(Fe1-xCox)2As2 alloy system, suggest that the intrinsic value of the exponent alpha for the iron superconductors, when the samples are annealed, with fewer defects, may indeed be even further from the BCS value of 0.8-0.9 than previously thought.

Pressure-induced superconductivity in the giant Rashba system BiTeI

At ambient pressure, BiTeI exhibits a giant Rashba splitting of the bulk electronic bands. At low pressures, BiTeI undergoes a transition from trivial insulator to topological insulator. At still higher pressures, two structural transitions are known to occur. We have carried out a series of electrical resistivity and AC magnetic susceptibility measurements on BiTeI at pressure up tou2009u2009∼40u2009GPa in an effort to characterize the properties of the high-pressure phases. A previous calculation found that the high-pressure orthorhombic P4/nmm structure BiTeI is a metal. We find that this structure is superconducting with T c values as high as 6u2009K. AC magnetic susceptibility measurements support the bulk nature of the superconductivity. Using electronic structure and phonon calculations, we compute T c and find that our data is consistent with phonon-mediated superconductivity.

Universal scaling law for the condensation energy across a broad range of superconductor classes

One of the goals in understanding any new class of superconductors is to search for commonalities with other known superconductors. The present work investigates the superconducting condensation energy, U, in the iron based superconductors (IBS), and compares their U with a broad range of other distinct classes of superconductor, including conventional BCS elements and compounds and the unconventional heavy Fermion, Sr2RuO4, Li0.1ZrNCl, kappa-(BEDT-TTF)2Cu(NCS)2 and optimally doped cuprate superconductors. Surprisingly, both the magnitude and Tc dependence (U=0.1Tc**3.4 +- 0.2) of U are, contrary to the previously observed behavior of the specific heat discontinuity at Tc, deltaC, quite similar in the IBS and BCS materials for Tc>1.4 K. In contrast, the heavy Fermion superconductors U vs Tc are strongly (up to a factor of 100) enhanced above the IBS/BCS while the cuprate superconductors U are strongly (factor of 8) reduced. However, scaling of U with the specific heat gamma (or deltaC) brings all the superconductors investigated onto one universal dependence upon Tc. This apparent universal scaling U/gamma = 0.2Tc**2 for all superconductor classes investigated, both weak and strong coupled and both conventional and unconventional, links together extremely disparate behaviors over almost seven orders of magnitude for U and almost three orders of magnitude for Tc. Since U has not yet been explicitly calculated beyond the weak coupling limit, the present results can help direct theoretical efforts into the medium and strong coupling regimes.