Imaging Orbital-selective Quasiparticles in the Hund's Metal State of FeSe

Abstract

Strong electronic correlations, emerging from the parent Mott insulator phase, are key to copper-based high temperature superconductivity (HTS). By contrast, the parent phase of iron-based HTS is never a correlated insulator. But this distinction may be deceptive because Fe has five active d-orbitals while Cu has only one. In theory, such orbital multiplicity can generate a Hund's Metal state, in which alignment of the Fe spins suppresses inter-orbital fluctuations producing orbitally selective strong correlations. The spectral weights $Z_m$ of quasiparticles associated with different Fe orbitals m should then be radically different. Here we use quasiparticle scattering interference resolved by orbital content to explore these predictions in FeSe. Signatures of strong, orbitally selective differences of quasiparticle $Z_m$ appear on all detectable bands over a wide energy range. Further, the quasiparticle interference amplitudes reveal that $Z_{xy}<Z_{xz}<<Z_{yz}$, consistent with earlier orbital-selective Cooper pairing studies. Thus, orbital-selective strong correlations dominate the parent state of iron-based HTS in FeSe.