Formation mechanism of superconducting phase and its three-dimensional architecture in pseudo-single-crystal KxFe2-ySe2
Abstract
Here, we report how the superconducting phase forms in pseudo-single-crystal KxFe2-ySe2. In situ scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observation reveals that, as an order-disorder transition occurs, on cooling, most of the high-temperature iron-vacancy-disordered phase gradually changes into the iron-vacancy-ordered phase whereas a small quantity of the high-temperature phase retains its structure and aggregates to the stripes with more iron concentration but less potassium concentration compared to the iron-vacancy-ordered phase. The stripes that are generally recognized as the superconducting phase are actually formed as a remnant of the high-temperature phase with a compositional change after an “imperfect” order-disorder transition. It should be emphasized that the phase separation in pseudo-single-crystal KxFe2-ySe2 is caused by the iron-vacancy order-disorder transition. The shrinkage of the high-temperature phase and the expansion of the newly created iron-vacancy-ordered phase during the phase separation rule out the mechanism of spinodal decomposition proposed in an early report [Wang et al, Phys. Rev. B 91, 064513 (2015)]. Since the formation of the superconducting phase relies on the occurrence of the iron-vacancy order-disorder transition, it is impossible to synthesize a pure superconducting phase by a conventional solid state reaction or melt growth. By focused ion beam-scanning electron microscopy, we further demonstrate that themore »
- Authors:
-
- Ames Lab., Ames, IA (United States)
- Ames Lab., Ames, IA (United States); Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States)
- Carl Zeiss Microscopy, LLC, Peabody, MA (United States). Ion Microscopy Innovation Center (IMIC)
- Carl Zeiss Microscopy, LLC, Thornwood, NY (United States)
- Oxford Instruments America, Inc., Concord, MA (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Ames Lab., Ames, IA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1249341
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1237792
- Report Number(s):
- IS-J-8950
Journal ID: ISSN 2469-9950; PRBMDO
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-07CH11358
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review B
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 93; Journal Issue: 6; Journal ID: ISSN 2469-9950
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
Citation Formats
Liu, Yong, Xing, Qingfeng, Straszheim, Warren E., Marshman, Jeff, Pedersen, Pal, McLaughlin, Richard, and Lograsso, Thomas A.. Formation mechanism of superconducting phase and its three-dimensional architecture in pseudo-single-crystal KxFe2-ySe2. United States: N. p., 2016.
Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.93.064509.
Liu, Yong, Xing, Qingfeng, Straszheim, Warren E., Marshman, Jeff, Pedersen, Pal, McLaughlin, Richard, & Lograsso, Thomas A.. Formation mechanism of superconducting phase and its three-dimensional architecture in pseudo-single-crystal KxFe2-ySe2. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.93.064509
Liu, Yong, Xing, Qingfeng, Straszheim, Warren E., Marshman, Jeff, Pedersen, Pal, McLaughlin, Richard, and Lograsso, Thomas A.. Thu .
"Formation mechanism of superconducting phase and its three-dimensional architecture in pseudo-single-crystal KxFe2-ySe2". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.93.064509. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1249341.
@article{osti_1249341,
title = {Formation mechanism of superconducting phase and its three-dimensional architecture in pseudo-single-crystal KxFe2-ySe2},
author = {Liu, Yong and Xing, Qingfeng and Straszheim, Warren E. and Marshman, Jeff and Pedersen, Pal and McLaughlin, Richard and Lograsso, Thomas A.},
abstractNote = {Here, we report how the superconducting phase forms in pseudo-single-crystal KxFe2-ySe2. In situ scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observation reveals that, as an order-disorder transition occurs, on cooling, most of the high-temperature iron-vacancy-disordered phase gradually changes into the iron-vacancy-ordered phase whereas a small quantity of the high-temperature phase retains its structure and aggregates to the stripes with more iron concentration but less potassium concentration compared to the iron-vacancy-ordered phase. The stripes that are generally recognized as the superconducting phase are actually formed as a remnant of the high-temperature phase with a compositional change after an “imperfect” order-disorder transition. It should be emphasized that the phase separation in pseudo-single-crystal KxFe2-ySe2 is caused by the iron-vacancy order-disorder transition. The shrinkage of the high-temperature phase and the expansion of the newly created iron-vacancy-ordered phase during the phase separation rule out the mechanism of spinodal decomposition proposed in an early report [Wang et al, Phys. Rev. B 91, 064513 (2015)]. Since the formation of the superconducting phase relies on the occurrence of the iron-vacancy order-disorder transition, it is impossible to synthesize a pure superconducting phase by a conventional solid state reaction or melt growth. By focused ion beam-scanning electron microscopy, we further demonstrate that the superconducting phase forms a contiguous three-dimensional architecture composed of parallelepipeds that have a coherent orientation relationship with the iron-vacancy-ordered phase.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevB.93.064509},
journal = {Physical Review B},
number = 6,
volume = 93,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Feb 11 00:00:00 EST 2016},
month = {Thu Feb 11 00:00:00 EST 2016}
}
Web of Science
Works referenced in this record:
Superconductivity in the iron selenide
journal, November 2010
- Guo, Jiangang; Jin, Shifeng; Wang, Gang
- Physical Review B, Vol. 82, Issue 18
Nanoscale phase separation in the iron chalcogenide superconductor K Fe Se as seen via scanning nanofocused x-ray diffraction
journal, August 2011
- Ricci, A.; Poccia, N.; Campi, G.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 84, Issue 6
Microstructure and ordering of iron vacancies in the superconductor system Fe Se as seen via transmission electron microscopy
journal, April 2011
- Wang, Z.; Song, Y. J.; Shi, H. L.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 83, Issue 14
Microstructural analysis of phase separation in iron chalcogenide superconductors
journal, July 2012
- Speller, S. C.; Britton, T. B.; Hughes, G. M.
- Superconductor Science and Technology, Vol. 25, Issue 8
Evolution of precipitate morphology during heat treatment and its implications for the superconductivity in K Fe Se single crystals
journal, October 2012
- Liu, Y.; Xing, Q.; Dennis, K. W.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 86, Issue 14
Colloquium : The unexpected properties of alkali metal iron selenide superconductors
journal, May 2013
- Dagotto, Elbio
- Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 85, Issue 2
Structure, magnetic order and excitations in the 245 family of Fe-based superconductors
journal, November 2014
- Bao, Wei
- Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, Vol. 27, Issue 2
Absence of a Holelike Fermi Surface for the Iron-Based Superconductor Revealed by Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy
journal, May 2011
- Qian, T.; Wang, X. -P.; Jin, W. -C.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 18
Nodeless superconducting gap in AxFe2Se2 (A=K,Cs) revealed by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy
journal, February 2011
- Zhang, Y.; Yang, L. X.; Xu, M.
- Nature Materials, Vol. 10, Issue 4
-wave pairing from spin fluctuations in the Fe Se superconductors
journal, March 2011
- Maier, T. A.; Graser, S.; Hirschfeld, P. J.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 83, Issue 10
Emergence of fully gapped -wave and nodal -wave states mediated by orbital and spin fluctuations in a ten-orbital model of KFe Se
journal, April 2011
- Saito, Tetsuro; Onari, Seiichiro; Kontani, Hiroshi
- Physical Review B, Vol. 83, Issue 14
Archimedean solidlike superconducting framework in phase-separated
journal, February 2015
- Wang, Z.; Cai, Y.; Wang, Z. W.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 91, Issue 6
Disordered Fe vacancies and superconductivity in potassium-intercalated iron selenide (K 2− x Fe 4+ y Se 5 )
journal, July 2015
- Wang, Chih-Han; Chen, Ta-Kun; Chang, Chung-Chieh
- EPL (Europhysics Letters), Vol. 111, Issue 2
CASINO V2.42—A Fast and Easy-to-use Modeling Tool for Scanning Electron Microscopy and Microanalysis Users
journal, January 2007
- Drouin, Dominique; Couture, Alexandre Réal; Joly, Dany
- Scanning, Vol. 29, Issue 3
Intrinsic phase separation in superconducting K 0.8 Fe 1.6 Se 2 ( T c = 31.8 K) single crystals
journal, July 2011
- Ricci, Alessandro; Poccia, Nicola; Joseph, Boby
- Superconductor Science and Technology, Vol. 24, Issue 8
A Novel Large Moment Antiferromagnetic Order in K 0.8 Fe 1.6 Se 2 Superconductor
journal, August 2011
- Bao, Wei; Huang, Qing-Zhen; Chen, Gen-Fu
- Chinese Physics Letters, Vol. 28, Issue 8
Iron-vacancy superstructure and possible room-temperature antiferromagnetic order in superconducting Cs Fe Se
journal, April 2011
- Pomjakushin, V. Yu.; Sheptyakov, D. V.; Pomjakushina, E. V.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 83, Issue 14
Phase relations in K Fe Se and the structure of superconducting K Fe Se via high-resolution synchrotron diffraction
journal, November 2012
- Shoemaker, Daniel P.; Chung, Duck Young; Claus, Helmut
- Physical Review B, Vol. 86, Issue 18
Structure and composition of the superconducting phase in alkali iron selenide
journal, April 2014
- Carr, Scott V.; Louca, Despina; Siewenie, Joan
- Physical Review B, Vol. 89, Issue 13
Phase separation and magnetic order in K-doped iron selenide superconductor
journal, November 2011
- Li, Wei; Ding, Hao; Deng, Peng
- Nature Physics, Vol. 8, Issue 2
is the Parent Compound of K-Doped Iron Selenide Superconductors
journal, July 2012
- Li, Wei; Ding, Hao; Li, Zhi
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 109, Issue 5
Influence of microstructure on superconductivity in KxFe2−ySe2 and evidence for a new parent phase K2Fe7Se8
journal, May 2013
- Ding, Xiaxin; Fang, Delong; Wang, Zhenyu
- Nature Communications, Vol. 4, Issue 1
Fe-vacancy order and superconductivity in tetragonal -Fe1-xSe
journal, December 2013
- Chen, T. -K.; Chang, C. -C.; Chang, H. -H.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 111, Issue 1
Structural Phase Separation in K 0.8 Fe 1.6+ x Se 2 Superconductors
journal, August 2012
- Wang, Zhi-Wei; Wang, Zhen; Song, Yuan-Jun
- The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, Vol. 116, Issue 33
Direct observation of nanoscale interface phase in the superconducting chalcogenide with intrinsic phase separation
journal, January 2015
- Ricci, A.; Poccia, N.; Joseph, B.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 91, Issue 2
High-resolution characterization of microstructural evolution in crystals on annealing
journal, July 2014
- Speller, S. C.; Dudin, P.; Fitzgerald, S.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 90, Issue 2
NMR Study in the Iron-Selenide : Determination of the Superconducting Phase as Iron Vacancy-Free
journal, June 2012
- Texier, Y.; Deisenhofer, J.; Tsurkan, V.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 108, Issue 23
Superconducting properties of single-crystalline Fe Se ( Rb, K) studied using muon spin spectroscopy
journal, March 2012
- Shermadini, Z.; Luetkens, H.; Khasanov, R.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 85, Issue 10
Mössbauer study of magnetic ordering in superconducting single crystals
journal, March 2011
- Ryan, D. H.; Rowan-Weetaluktuk, W. N.; Cadogan, J. M.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 83, Issue 10
Phase separation in superconducting and antiferromagnetic probed by Mössbauer spectroscopy
journal, November 2011
- Ksenofontov, Vadim; Wortmann, Gerhard; Medvedev, Sergey A.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 84, Issue 18
Works referencing / citing this record:
Nanoscale electrodynamics of strongly correlated quantum materials
journal, November 2016
- Liu, Mengkun; Sternbach, Aaron J.; Basov, D. N.
- Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol. 80, Issue 1
Imaging the local electronic and magnetic properties of intrinsically phase separated Rb x Fe 2– y Se 2 superconductor using scanning microscopy techniques
journal, February 2019
- Dudin, P.; Herriott, D.; Davies, T.
- Superconductor Science and Technology, Vol. 32, Issue 4