Browsing by Author "Cao, Chongde"
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Item A Mott insulator continuously connected to iron pnictide superconductors(Springer Nature, 2016) Song, Yu; Yamani, Zahra; Cao, Chongde; Li, Yu; Zhang, Chenglin; Chen, Justin S.; Huang, Qingzhen; Wu, Hui; Tao, Jing; Zhu, Yimei; Tian, Wei; Chi, Songxue; Cao, Huibo; Huang, Yao-Bo; Dantz, Marcus; Schmitt, Thorsten; Yu, Rong; Nevidomskyy, Andriy H.; Morosan, Emilia; Si, Qimiao; Dai, Pengcheng; Rice Center for Quantum MaterialsIron-based superconductivity develops near an antiferromagnetic order and out of a bad-metal normal state, which has been interpreted as originating from a proximate Mott transition. Whether an actual Mott insulator can be realized in the phase diagram of the iron pnictides remains an open question. Here we use transport, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, resonant inelastic X-ray scattering and neutron scattering to demonstrate that NaFe1−xCuxAs near x≈0.5 exhibits real space Fe and Cu ordering, and are antiferromagnetic insulators with the insulating behaviour persisting above the Néel temperature, indicative of a Mott insulator. On decreasing x from 0.5, the antiferromagnetic-ordered moment continuously decreases, yielding to superconductivity ∼x=0.05. Our discovery of a Mott-insulating state in NaFe1−xCuxAs thus makes it the only known Fe-based material, in which superconductivity can be smoothly connected to the Mott-insulating state, highlighting the important role of electron correlations in the high-Tc superconductivity.Item Disentangling superconducting and magnetic orders in NaFe1−xNixAs using muon spin rotation(American Physical Society, 2018) Cheung, Sky C.; Guguchia, Zurab; Frandsen, Benjamin A.; Gong, Zizhou; Yamakawa, Kohtaro; Almeida, Dalson E.; Onuorah, Ifeanyi J.; Bonfá, Pietro; Miranda, Eduardo; Wang, Weiyi; Tam, David W.; Song, Yu; Cao, Chongde; Cai, Yipeng; Hallas, Alannah M.; Wilson, Murray N.; Munsie, Timothy J.S.; Luke, Graeme; Chen, Bijuan; Dai, Guangyang; Jin, Changqing; Guo, Shengli; Ning, Fanlong; Fernandes, Rafael M.; De Renzi, Roberto; Dai, Pengcheng; Uemura, Yasutomo J.Muon spin rotation and relaxation studies have been performed on a “111” family of iron-based superconductors, NaFe1−xNixAs, using single crystalline samples with Ni concentrations x=0, 0.4, 0.6, 1.0, 1.3, and 1.5%. Static magnetic order was characterized by obtaining the temperature and doping dependences of the local ordered magnetic moment size and the volume fraction of the magnetically ordered regions. For x=0 and 0.4%, a transition to a nearly-homogeneous long range magnetically ordered state is observed, while for x≳0.4% magnetic order becomes more disordered and is completely suppressed for x=1.5%. The magnetic volume fraction continuously decreases with increasing x. Development of superconductivity in the full volume is inferred from Meissner shielding results for x≳0.4%. The combination of magnetic and superconducting volumes implies that a spatially-overlapping coexistence of magnetism and superconductivity spans a large region of the T−x phase diagram for NaFe1−xNixAs. A strong reduction of both the ordered moment size and the volume fraction is observed below the superconducting TC for x=0.6, 1.0, and 1.3%, in contrast to other iron pnictides in which one of these two parameters exhibits a reduction below TC, but not both. The suppression of magnetic order is further enhanced with increased Ni doping, leading to a reentrant nonmagnetic state below TC for x=1.3%. The reentrant behavior indicates an interplay between antiferromagnetism and superconductivity involving competition for the same electrons. These observations are consistent with the sign-changing s± superconducting state, which is expected to appear on the verge of microscopic coexistence and phase separation with magnetism. We also present a universal linear relationship between the local ordered moment size and the antiferromagnetic ordering temperature TN across a variety of iron-based superconductors. We argue that this linear relationship is consistent with an itinerant-electron approach, in which Fermi surface nesting drives antiferromagnetic ordering. In studies of superconducting properties, we find that the T=0 limit of superfluid density follows the linear trend observed in underdoped cuprates when plotted against TC. This paper also includes a detailed theoretical prediction of the muon stopping sites and provides comparisons with experimental results.Item High-energy magnetic excitations from heavy quasiparticles in CeCu2Si2(Springer Nature, 2021) Song, Yu; Wang, Weiyi; Cao, Chongde; Yamani, Zahra; Xu, Yuanji; Sheng, Yutao; Löser, Wolfgang; Qiu, Yiming; Yang, Yi-feng; Birgeneau, Robert J.; Dai, PengchengMagnetic fluctuations is the leading candidate for pairing in cuprate, iron-based, and heavy fermion superconductors. This view is challenged by the recent discovery of nodeless superconductivity in CeCu2Si2, and calls for a detailed understanding of the corresponding magnetic fluctuations. Here, we mapped out the magnetic excitations in superconducting (S-type) CeCu2Si2 using inelastic neutron scattering, finding a strongly asymmetric dispersion for E ≲ 1.5 meV, which at higher energies evolves into broad columnar magnetic excitations that extend to E ≳ 5 meV. While low-energy magnetic excitations exhibit marked three-dimensional characteristics, the high-energy magnetic excitations in CeCu2Si2 are almost two-dimensional, reminiscent of paramagnons found in cuprate and iron-based superconductors. By comparing our experimental findings with calculations in the random-phase approximation,we find that the magnetic excitations in CeCu2Si2 arise from quasiparticles associated with its heavy electron band, which are also responsible for superconductivity. Our results provide a basis for understanding magnetism and superconductivity in CeCu2Si2, and demonstrate the utility of neutron scattering in probing band renormalization in heavy fermion metals.Item Local orthorhombic lattice distortions in the paramagnetic tetragonal phase of superconducting NaFe1−xNixAs(Springer Nature, 2018) Wang, Weiyi; Song, Yu; Cao, Chongde; Tseng, Kuo-Feng; Keller, Thomas; Li, Yu; Harriger, L.W.; Tian, Wei; Chi, Songxue; Yu, Rong; Nevidomskyy, Andriy H.; Dai, PengchengUnderstanding the interplay between nematicity, magnetism and superconductivity is pivotal for elucidating the physics of iron-based superconductors. Here we use neutron scattering to probe magnetic and nematic orders throughout the phase diagram of NaFe1-xNixAs, finding that while both static antiferromagnetic and nematic orders compete with superconductivity, the onset temperatures for these two orders remain well separated approaching the putative quantum critical points. We uncover local orthorhombic distortions that persist well above the tetragonal-to-orthorhombic structural transition temperature Ts in underdoped samples and extend well into the overdoped regime that exhibits neither magnetic nor structural phase transitions. These unexpected local orthorhombic distortions display Curie-Weiss temperature dependence and become suppressed below the superconducting transition temperature Tc, suggesting that they result from the large nematic susceptibility near optimal superconductivity. Our results account for observations of rotational symmetry breaking above Ts, and attest to the presence of significant nematic fluctuations near optimal superconductivity.Item NaFe0.56Cu0.44As: A Pnictide Insulating Phase Induced by On-Site Coulomb Interaction(American Physical Society, 2016) Matt, C.E.; Xu, N.; Lv, Baiqing; Ma, Junzhang; Bisti, F.; Park, J.; Shang, T.; Cao, Chongde; Song, Yu; Nevidomskyy, Andriy H.; Dai, Pengcheng; Patthey, L.; Plumb, N.C.; Radovic, M.; Mesot, J.; Shi, M.In the studies of iron pnictides, a key question is whether their bad-metal state from which the superconductivity emerges lies in close proximity with a magnetically ordered insulating phase. Recently, it was found that at low temperatures, the heavily Cu-doped NaFe1−xCuxAs (x>0.3) iron pnictide is an insulator with long-range antiferromagnetic order, similar to the parent compound of cuprates but distinct from all other iron pnictides. Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we determined the momentum-resolved electronic structure of NaFe1−xCuxAs (x=0.44) and identified that its ground state is a narrow-gap insulator. Combining the experimental results with density functional theory (DFT) and DFT+U calculations, our analysis reveals that the on-site Coulombic (Hubbard) and Hund’s coupling energies play crucial roles in the formation of the band gap about the chemical potential. We propose that at finite temperatures, charge carriers are thermally excited from the Cu-As-like valence band into the conduction band, which is of Fe 3d-like character. With increasing temperature, the number of electrons in the conduction band becomes larger and the hopping energy between Fe sites increases, and finally the long-range antiferromagnetic order is destroyed at T>TN. Our study provides a basis for investigating the evolution of the electronic structure of a Mott insulator transforming into a bad metallic phase and eventually forming a superconducting state in iron pnictides.