Browsing by Author "Acharya, Arani"

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    Widespread orthorhombic fluctuations in the (Sr,Na)Fe2As2 family of superconductors
    (American Physical Society, 2018) Frandsen, Benjamin A.; Taddei, Keith M.; Bugaris, Daniel E.; Stadel, Ryan; Yi, Ming; Acharya, Arani; Osborn, Raymond; Rosenkranz, Stephan; Chmaissem, Omar; Birgeneau, Robert J.
    We report comprehensive pair distribution function measurements of the hole-doped iron-based superconductor system Sr1−xNaxFe2As2. Structural refinements performed as a function of temperature and length scale reveal orthorhombic distortions of the instantaneous local structure across a large region of the phase diagram possessing average tetragonal symmetry, indicative of fluctuating nematicity. These nematic fluctuations are present up to high doping levels (x≳0.48, near optimal superconductivity) and high temperatures (above room temperature for x=0, decreasing to 150 K for x=0.48), with a typical length scale of 1–3 nm. This work highlights the ubiquity of nematic fluctuations in a representative iron-based superconductor and provides important details about the evolution of these fluctuations across the phase diagram.