Article abstract


Nature Materials 7, 953 - 959 (2008)
Published online: 26 October 2008 | doi:10.1038/nmat2315

Subject Categories: Electronic materials | Superconductors

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

Jun Zhao1, Q. Huang2, Clarina de la Cruz1,3, Shiliang Li1, J. W. Lynn2, Y. Chen2,4, M. A. Green2,4, G. F. Chen5, G. Li5, Z. Li5, J. L. Luo5, N. L. Wang5 & Pengcheng Dai1,3


Recently, high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconductivity was discovered in the iron pnictide RFeAsO1-xFx (R, rare-earth metal) family of materials. We use neutron scattering to study the structural and magnetic phase transitions in CeFeAsO1-xFx as the system is tuned from a semimetal to a high-Tc superconductor through fluorine (F) doping, x. In the undoped state, CeFeAsO develops a structural lattice distortion followed by a collinear antiferromagnetic order with decreasing temperature. With increasing fluorine doping, the structural phase transition decreases gradually and vanishes within the superconductivity dome near x=0.10, whereas the antiferromagnetic order is suppressed before the appearance of superconductivity for x>0.06, resulting in 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 suggests that the structural perfection of the Fe–As tetrahedron is important for the high-Tc superconductivity in these Fe pnictides.

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  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-1200, USA
  2. NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899-6012, USA
  3. Neutron Scattering Science Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA
  4. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742-6393, USA
  5. Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China

Correspondence to: Pengcheng Dai1,3 e-mail: daip@ornl.gov




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