arXiv subjects

Shiliang Li

Publications and source records attributed to Shiliang Li.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2009

Lattice distortion and magnetic quantum phase transition in CeFeAs(1-x)P(x)O

We use neutron scattering to show that replacing the larger arsenic with smaller phosphorus in CeFeAs(1-x)P(x)O simultaneously suppresses the AF order and orthorhombic distortion near x = 0.4, providing evidence for a magnetic quantum critical point. Furthermore, we find that the pnictogen height in iron arsenide is an important controlling parameter for their electronic and magnetic properties, and may play an important role in electron pairing and superconductivity.

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arXiv2009

Structural and magnetic phase transitions in Na$_{1-δ}$FeAs

We use neutron scattering to study the spin and lattice structures of single crystal and powder samples of Na$_{1-δ}$FeAs ($T_c = 23$ K). On cooling from room temperature, the system goes through a series of phase transitions: first changing the crystal symmetry from tetragonal to orthorhombic at 49 K, then ordering antiferromagnetically with a spin structure similar to that of LaFeAsO and a small moment (0.09$\pm$0.04 $μ_B$), and finally becoming superconducting below about 23 K. These results confirm that antiferromagnetic order is ubiquitous for the parent compounds of the iron arsenide superconductors, and suggest that the separated structural and magnetic phase transition temperatures are due to the reduction in the c-axis exchange coupling of the system.

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arXiv2009

Effect of electron-doping on spin excitations of underdoped BaFe$_{1.96}$Ni$_{0.04}$As$_{2}$

We use neutron scattering to study magnetic order and spin excitations in BaFe$_{1.96}$Ni$_{0.04}$As$_{2}$. On cooling, the system first changes the lattice symmetry from tetragonal to orthoromhbic near $\sim$97 K, and then orders antiferromagnetically at $T_N=91$ K before developing weak superconductivity below $\sim$15 K. Although superconductivity appears to co-exist with static antiferromagnetic order from transport and neutron diffraction measurement, inelastic neutron scattering experiments reveal that magnetic excitations do not respond to superconductivity. Instead, the effect of electron-doping is to reduce the c-axis exchange coupling in BaFe$_2$As$_2$ and induce quasi two-dimensional spin excitations. These results suggest that transition from three-dimensional spin waves to two-dimensional spin excitations by electron-doping is important for the separated structural/magnetic phase transitions and high-temperature superconductivity in iron arsenides.

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arXiv2009

Spin Waves and Magnetic Exchange Interactions in CaFe2As2

Antiferromagnetism is relevant to high temperature (high-Tc) superconductivity because copper oxide and iron arsenide high-Tc superconductors arise from electron- or hole-doping of their antiferromagnetic (AF) ordered parent compounds. There are two broad classes of explanation for the phenomenon of antiferromagnetism: in the local moment picture, appropriate for the insulating copper oxides, AF interactions are well described by a Heisenberg Hamiltonian; while in the itinerant model, suitable for metallic chromium, AF order arises from quasiparticle excitations of a nested Fermi surface. There has been contradictory evidence regarding the microscopic origin of the AF order in iron arsenide materials, with some favoring a localized picture while others supporting an itinerant point of view. More importantly, there has not even been agreement about the simplest effective ground state Hamiltonian necessary to describe the AF order. Here we report inelastic neutron scattering mapping of spin-wave excitations in CaFe2As2, a parent compound of the iron arsenide family of superconductors. We find that the spin waves in the entire Brillouin zone can be described by an effective three-dimensional local moment Heisenberg Hamiltonian, but the large in-plane anisotropy cannot. Therefore, magnetism in the parent compounds of iron arsenide superconductors is neither purely local nor purely itinerant; rather it is a complicated mix of the two.

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arXiv2009

Spin gap and magnetic resonance in superconducting BaFe$_{1.9}$Ni$%_{0.1}$As$_{2}$

We use neutron spectroscopy to determine the nature of the magnetic excitations in superconducting BaFe$_{1.9}$Ni$_{0.1}$As$_{2}$ ($T_{c}=20$ K). Above $T_{c}$ the excitations are gapless and centered at the commensurate antiferromagnetic wave vector of the parent compound, while the intensity exhibits a sinusoidal modulation along the c-axis. As the superconducting state is entered a spin gap gradually opens, whose magnitude tracks the $T$-dependence of the superconducting gap observed by angle resolved photoemission. Both the spin gap and magnetic resonance energies are temperature \textit{and} wave vector dependent, but their ratio is the same within uncertainties. These results suggest that the spin resonance is a singlet-triplet excitation related to electron pairing and superconductivity.

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arXiv2008

First-order magnetic and structural phase transitions in Fe$_{1+y}$Se$_x$Te$_{1-x}$

We use bulk magnetic susceptibility, electronic specific heat, and neutron scattering to study structural and magnetic phase transitions in Fe$_{1+y}$Se% $_x$Te$_{1-x}$. Fe$_{1.068}$Te exhibits a first order phase transition near 67 K with a tetragonal to monoclinic structural transition and simultaneously develops a collinear antiferromagnetic (AF) order responsible for the entropy change across the transition. Systematic studies of FeSe$%_{1-x}$Te$_x$ system reveal that the AF structure and lattice distortion in these materials are different from those of FeAs-based pnictides. These results call into question the conclusions of present density functional calculations, where FeSe$_{1-x}$Te$_x$ and FeAs-based pnictides are expected to have similar Fermi surfaces and therefore the same spin-density-wave AF order.

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arXiv2008

Low energy spin waves and magnetic interactions in SrFe$_2$As$_2$

We report inelastic neutron scattering studies of magnetic excitations in antiferromagnetically ordered SrFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ ($T_{N}=220$ K), the parent compound of the FeAs-based superconductors. At low temperatures (T=7 K), the spectrum of magnetic excitations $S(Q,\hbar ω)$ consists of a Bragg peak at the elastic position ($\hbar ω=0$ meV), a spin gap ($ Δ\leq 6.5$ meV), and sharp spin wave excitations at higher energies. Based on the observed dispersion relation, we estimate the effective magnetic exchange coupling using a Heisenberg model. On warming across $T_{N} $, the low temperature spin gap rapidly closes, with weak critical scattering and spin-spin correlations in the paramagnetic state. The antiferromagnetic order in SrFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ is therefore consistent with a first order phase transition, similar to the structural lattice distortion.

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arXiv2008

Weak coupling Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer suerconductivity in the Electron-Doped Cuprate Superconductors

We use in-plane tunneling spectroscopy to study the temperature dependence of the local superconducting gap $Δ(T)$ in electron-doped copper oxides with various $T_c$'s and Ce-doping concentrations. We show that the temperature dependence of $Δ(T)$ follows the expectation of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory of superconductivity, where $Δ(0)/k_{B}T_{c}\approx1.72\pm 0.15$ and $Δ(0)$ is the average superconducting gap across the Fermi surface, for all the doping levels investigated. These results suggest that the electron-doped superconducting copper oxides are weak coupling BCS superconductors.

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arXiv2008

The crystalline electric field as a probe for long range antiferromagnetic order and superconductivity in CeFeAsO$_{1-x}$F$_x$

We use inelastic neutron scattering to study the crystalline electric field (CEF) excitations of Ce$^{3+}$ in CeFeAsO$_{1-x}$F$_{x}$($x=0,0.16$). For nonsuperconducting CeFeAsO, the Ce CEF levels have three magnetic doublets in the paramagnetic state, but these doublets split into six singlets when Fe ions order antiferromagnetically. For superconducting CeFeAsO$_{0.84}$F$_{0.16}$ ($T_c=41$ K), where the static AF order is suppressed, the Ce CEF levels have three magnetic doublets at $\hbarω=0,18.7,58.4$ meV at all temperatures. Careful measurements of the intrinsic linewidth $Γ$ and the peak position of the 18.7 meV mode reveal clear anomaly at $T_c$, consistent with a strong enhancement of local magnetic susceptibility $χ^{\prime\prime}(\hbarω)$ below $T_c$. These results suggest that CEF excitations in the rare-earth oxypnictides can be used as a probe of spin dynamics in the nearby FeAs planes.

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arXiv2008

Destruction of Neel order and appearance of superconductivity in electron-doped cuprates by oxygen annealing process

We use thermodynamic and neutron scattering measurements to study the effect of oxygen annealing on the superconductivity and magnetism in Pr$_{0.88}$LaCe$_{0.12}$CuO$_{4-δ}$. Although the transition temperature $T_c$ measured by susceptibility and superconducting coherence length increase smoothly with gradual oxygen removal from the annealing process, bulk superconductivity, marked by a specific heat anomaly at $T_c$ and the presence of a neutron magnetic resonance, only appears abruptly when $T_c$ is close to the largest value. These results suggest that the effect of oxygen annealing must be first determined in order to establish a Ce-doping dependence of antiferromagnetism and superconductivity phase diagram for electron-doped copper oxides.

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arXiv2008

Structural and magnetic phase diagram of CeFeAsO1-xFx and its relationship to high-temperature superconductivity

We use neutron scattering to study the structural and magnetic phase transitions in the iron pnictides CeFeAsO1-xFx as the system is tuned from a semimetal to a high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconductor through Fluorine (F) doping x. In the undoped state, CeFeAsO develops a structural lattice distortion followed by a stripe like commensurate antiferromagnetic order with decreasing temperature. With increasing Fluorine doping, the structural phase transition decreases gradually while the antiferromagnetic order is suppressed before the appearance of superconductivity, resulting an electronic phase diagram remarkably similar to that of the high-Tc copper oxides. Comparison of the structural evolution of CeFeAsO1-xFx with other Fe-based superconductors reveals that the effective electronic band width decreases systematically for materials with higher Tc. The results suggest that electron correlation effects are important for the mechanism of high-Tc superconductivity in these Fe pnictides.

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arXiv2008

A distinct bosonic mode in an electron-doped high-transition-temperature superconductor

Despite recent advances in understanding high-transition-temperature (high-T c) superconductors, there is no consensus on the origin of the superconducting 'glue': that is, the mediator that binds electrons into superconducting pairs. The main contenders are lattice vibrations (phonons) and spin-excitations with the additional possibility of pairing without mediators. In conventional superconductors, phonon-mediated pairing was unequivocally established by data from tunnelling experiments. Proponents of phonons as the high-T c glue were therefore encouraged by the recent scanning tunnelling microscopy experiments on hole-doped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8-delta (BSCCO) that reveal an oxygen lattice vibrational mode whose energy is anticorrelated with the superconducting gap energy scale. Here we report high-resolution scanning tunnelling microscopy measurements of the electron-doped high-T c superconductor Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4 (PLCCO) (T c = 24 K) that reveal a bosonic excitation (mode) at energies of 10.5 plus/minus 2.5 meV. This energy is consistent with both spin-excitations in PLCCO measured by inelastic neutron scattering (resonance mode) and a low-energy acoustic phonon mode, but differs substantially from the oxygen vibrational mode identified in BSCCO. Our analysis of the variation of the local mode energy and intensity with the local gap energy scale indicates an electronic origin of the mode consistent with spin-excitations rather than phonons.

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arXiv2007

Quantum Spin Excitations through the metal-to-insulator crossover in $Y Ba_2 Cu_3 O_{6+y}$

We use inelastic neutron scattering to study the temperature dependence of the spin excitations of a detwinned superconducting YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.45}$ ($T_c=48$ K). In contrast to earlier work on YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.5}$ ($T_c=58$ K), where the prominent features in the magnetic spectra consist of a sharp collective magnetic excitation termed ``resonance'' and a large ($\hbarω\approx 15$ meV) superconducting spin gap, we find that the spin excitations in YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.45}$ are gapless and have a much broader resonance. Our detailed mapping of magnetic scattering along the $a^\ast$/$b^\ast$-axis directions at different energies reveals that spin excitations are unisotropic and consistent with the ``hourglass''-like dispersion along the $a^\ast$-axis direction near the resonance, but they are isotropic at lower energies. Since a fundamental change in the low-temperature normal state of YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+y}$ when superconductivity is suppressed takes place at $y\sim0.5$ with a metal-to-insulator crossover (MIC), where the ground state transforms from a metallic to an insulating-like phase, our results suggest a clear connection between the large change in spin excitations and the MIC. The resonance therefore is a fundamental feature of metallic ground state superconductors and a consequence of high-$T_c$ superconductivity.

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arXiv2007

Quantum spin correlations through the superconducting-normal phase transition in electron-doped superconducting Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4-d

The quantum spin fluctuations of the S = 1/2 Cu ions are important in determining the physical properties of the high-transition temperature (high-Tc) copper oxide superconductors, but their possible role in the electron pairing for superconductivity remains an open question. The principal feature of the spin fluctuations in optimally doped high-Tc superconductors is a well defined magnetic resonance whose energy (Er) tracks Tc (as the composition is varied) and whose intensity develops like an order parameter in the superconducting state. We show that the suppression of superconductivity and its associated condensation energy by a magnetic field in the electron-doped high-Tc superconductor, Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4-d (Tc = 24 K), is accompanied by the complete suppression of the resonance and the concomitant emergence of static antiferromagnetic (AF) order. Our results demonstrate that the resonance is intimately related to the superconducting condensation energy, and thus suggest that it plays a role in the electron pairing and superconductivity.

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arXiv2007

Resonance in Optimally Electron-Doped Superconductor Nd$_{1.85}$Ce$_{0.15}$CuO$_{4-δ}$

We use inelastic neutron scattering to probe magnetic excitations of an optimally electron-doped superconductor Nd$_{1.85}$Ce$_{0.15}$CuO$_{4-δ}$ above and below its superconducting transition temperature $T_c=25$ K. In addition to gradually opening a spin pseudo gap at the antiferromagnetic ordering wavevector ${\bf Q}=(1/2,1/2,0)$, the effect of superconductivity is to form a resonance centered also at ${\bf Q}=(1/2,1/2,0)$ but at energies above the spin pseudo gap. The intensity of the resonance develops like a superconducting order parameter, similar to those for hole-doped superconductors and electron-doped Pr$_{0.88}$LaCe$_{0.12}$CuO$_4$. The resonance is therefore a general phenomenon of cuprate superconductors, and must be fundamental to the mechanism of high-$T_c$ superconductivity.

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arXiv2007

Microscopic annealing process and its impact on superconductivity in T'-structure electron-doped copper oxides

High-transition-temperature superconductivity arises in copper oxides when holes or electrons are doped into the CuO2 planes of their insulating parent compounds. While hole-doping quickly induces metallic behavior and superconductivity in many cuprates, electron-doping alone is insufficient in materials such as R2CuO4 (R is Nd, Pr, La, Ce, etc.), where it is necessary to anneal an as-grown sample in a low-oxygen environment to remove a tiny amount of oxygen in order to induce superconductivity. Here we show that the microscopic process of oxygen reduction repairs Cu deficiencies in the as-grown materials and creates oxygen vacancies in the stoichiometric CuO2 planes, effectively reducing disorder and providing itinerant carriers for superconductivity. The resolution of this long-standing materials issue suggests that the fundamental mechanism for superconductivity is the same for electron- and hole-doped copper oxides.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2006

Evolution of the low energy spin dynamics in electron-doped high-transition temperature superconductor Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4-d

We use inelastic neutron scattering to explore the evolution of the low energy spin dynamics in the electron-doped cuprate Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4-d (PLCCO) as the system is tuned from its nonsuperconducting, as-grown antiferromagnetic (AF) state into an optimally-doped superconductor (Tc~24 K) without static AF order. The low temperature, low energy response of the spin excitations in under-doped samples is coupled to the presence of the AF phase, whereas the low-energy magnetic response for samples near optimal Tc exhibits spin fluctuations surprisingly insensitive to the sample temperature. This evolution of the low energy excitations is consistent with the influence of a quantum critical point in the phase diagram of PLCCO associated with the suppression of the static AF order. We carried out scaling analysis of the data and discuss the influence of quantum critical dynamics in the observed excitation spectrum.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2006

Resonance in the electron-doped high-Tc superconductor Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO(4-delta)

In conventional superconductors, the interaction that pairs the electrons to form the superconducting state is mediated by lattice vibrations (phonons). In high-transition temperature (high-Tc) copper oxides, it is generally believed that magnetic excitations play a fundamental role in the superconducting mechanism because superconductivity occurs when mobile 'electrons' or 'holes' are doped into the antiferromagnetic parent compounds. Indeed, a sharp magnetic excitation termed "resonance" has been observed by neutron scattering in a number of hole-doped materials. The resonance is intimately related to superconductivity, and its interaction with charged quasi-particles observed by photoemission, optical conductivity, and tunneling suggests that it plays a similar role as phonons in conventional superconductors. However, the relevance of the resonance to high-Tc superconductivity has been in doubt because so far it has been found only in hole-doped materials. Here we report the discovery of the resonance in electron-doped superconducting Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO(4-delta) (Tc = 24 K). We find that the resonance energy (Er) is proportional to Tc via Er = 5.8kBTc (kB is the Boltzmann's constant) for all high-Tc superconductors irrespective of electron- or hole-doping (Fig. 1e). Our results demonstrate that the resonance is a fundamental property of the superconducting copper oxides and therefore must play an essential role in the mechanism of superconductivity.

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