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Anisotropic spin fluctuations in detwinned FeSe

Nature Materials volume 18, pages 709–716 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Superconductivity in FeSe emerges from a nematic phase that breaks four-fold rotational symmetry in the iron plane. This phase may arise from orbital ordering, spin fluctuations or hidden magnetic quadrupolar order. Here we use inelastic neutron scattering on a mosaic of single crystals of FeSe, detwinned by mounting on a BaFe2As2 substrate to demonstrate that spin excitations are most intense at the antiferromagnetic wave vectors QAF = (±1, 0) at low energies E = 6–11 meV in the normal state. This two-fold (C2) anisotropy is reduced at lower energies, 3–5 meV, indicating a gapped four-fold (C4) mode. In the superconducting state, however, the strong nematic anisotropy is again reflected in the spin resonance (E = 3.6 meV) at QAF with incommensurate scattering around 5–6 meV. Our results highlight the extreme electronic anisotropy of the nematic phase of FeSe and are consistent with a highly anisotropic superconducting gap driven by spin fluctuations.

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Fig. 1: Crystal structure, Fermi surface and neutron scattering of FeSe.
Fig. 2: Low-energy spin fluctuations in twinned FeSe below and above Tc.
Fig. 3: Normal-state spin fluctuations in detwinned FeSe.
Fig. 4: Effect of superconductivity on low-energy spin fluctuations of detwinned FeSe.
Fig. 5: Theoretical calculations of the spin fluctuations in detwinned FeSe.

Data availability

The data that support the plots in this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank D. Abernathy, Q. Wang, Y. Hao and H. Hu for useful discussions. The neutron-scattering work at Rice University was supported by the US Department of Energy, BES DE-SC0012311 (P.D.). The single-crystal synthesis work was supported by Robert A. Welch Foundation grant no. C-1839 (P.D.). X.L. is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 11734002. C.B. and Y.C. are supported by the US Department of Energy grant no. DE-FG02-08ER46544. B.M.A. acknowledges financial support from the Carlsberg Foundation. P.J.H. was supported by the Department of Energy under grant no. DE-FG02-05ER46236. This research used resources at the High Flux Isotope Reactor and Spallation Neutron Source, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Access to MACS was provided by the Center for High Resolution Neutron Scattering, a partnership between the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Science Foundation under agreement No. DMR-1508249.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Tong Chen, Rui Zhang, Yu Li & Pengcheng Dai

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Youzhe Chen & Collin Broholm

  3. Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Andreas Kreisel

  4. Center for Advanced Quantum Studies and Department of Physics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Xingye Lu, Yan Rong & Pengcheng Dai

  5. Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich Center for Neutron Sciences at MLZ, Garching, Germany

    Astrid Schneidewind

  6. NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA

    Yiming Qiu & Collin Broholm

  7. Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ), Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany

    J. T. Park

  8. ISIS Facility, STFC Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, UK

    Toby G. Perring & J Ross Stewart

  9. Neutron Scattering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA

    Huibo Cao

  10. Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Yuan Wei

  11. Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Brian M. Andersen

  12. Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    P. J. Hirschfeld

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  1. Tong Chen
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Contributions

X.L., T.C. and P.D. conceived the project. T.C. prepared all the FeSe single-crystal samples. BaFe2As2 single crystals were prepared by T.C., X.L., R.Z., Y.L. and Y.R. Neutron-scattering experiments on twinned samples were carried out by T.C., Y.C., Y.Q., C.B. and P.D. at NCNR. Neutron-scattering experiments on detwinned samples were carried out by T.C., J.P., T.G.P., J.R.S., H.C., Y.W. and P.D. at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ISIS and MLZ. Theoretical analysis was performed by A.K., B.M.A. and P.J.H. The entire project was supervised by P.D. The manuscript was written by P.D., T.C., A.K., B.M.A. and P.J.H. All authors made comments.

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Correspondence to Xingye Lu or Pengcheng Dai.

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Supplementary Notes 1 and 2, Supplementary Figs. 1–10 and Supplementary References 1–12.

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Chen, T., Chen, Y., Kreisel, A. et al. Anisotropic spin fluctuations in detwinned FeSe. Nat. Mater. 18, 709–716 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-019-0369-5

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