Joakim Holmlund

Anharmonic softening of Raman active phonons in iron-pnictides: Estimating the Fe isotope effect due to anharmonic expansion

We present Raman measurements on the iron-pnictide superconductors CeFeAsO1-xFx and NdFeAsO1-xFx. Modeling the Fe-As plane in terms of harmonic and a cubic anharmonic Fe-As interactions, we calculate the temperature dependence of the energy and lifetime of the Raman active Fe B-1g mode and fit to the observed energy shift. The shifts and lifetimes are in good agreement with those measured also in other Raman studies which demonstrate that the phonon spectrum, at least at small wave numbers, is well represented by phonon-phonon interactions without any significant electronic contribution. Even at zero temperature there is a non-negligent effect of interactions on the phonon energy, which for the Fe B-1g mode corresponds to 6 cm(-1) or 3% of the total energy of the mode. We also estimate the anharmonic expansion from Fe (56 -> 54) isotope substitution to Delta a approximate to 5.1 x 10(-4) angstrom and Delta d(Fe-As) approximate to 2.5 x 10(-4) angstrom and the shift of harmonic zero-point fluctuations of bond lengths less than or similar to 3 x 10(-5) angstrom(2), giving a total relative average decrease in electronic hopping integrals of vertical bar delta vertical bar/t less than or similar to 2.0 x 10(-4). For a nonphonon-mediated weak-coupling superconductor this gives an isotope exponent alpha similar to 10(-2). The results pose a serious challenge for any theory of superconductivity in the pnictides that does not include electron-phonon interactions to produce a sizable Fe isotope effect.

Two-magnon Raman scattering from the Cu3O4 layers in (Sr-2,Ba-2)Cu3O4Cl

(Sr-2,Ba-2)Cu3O4Cl2 are antiferromagnetic insulators which are akin to the parent compounds of the cuprate superconductors but with two distinct magnetic ordering temperatures related to two magnetic Cu-I and Cu-II spin sublattices. Here we present a study of these materials by means of Raman spectroscopy. Following the temperature and polarization dependence of the data, we readily identify two distinct features at around 3000 and 300 cm(-1) that are related to two-magnon scattering from the two sublattices. The estimated spin-exchange coupling constants for the Cu-I and Cu-II sublattices are found to be J(I)similar to 139-143(132-136) meV and J(II)similar to 14 (11) meV for Sr(Ba) compounds. Moreover, we observe modes at around 480 and 445 cm(-1) for the Sr and Ba containing samples, respectively, which disappears at the ordering temperature of the Cu-II. We argue that these modes may also be of magnetic origin and possibly related to interband transitions between the Cu-I-Cu-II sublattices.