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Title: A Mott insulator continuously connected to iron pnictide superconductors

Journal Article · · Nature Communications
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13879· OSTI ID:1427592
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [6];  [7];  [7];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [9];  [10];  [1];  [1];  [1] more »; ORCiD logo [1] « less
  1. Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy. Rice Center for Quantum Materials
  2. Chalk River Labs., ON (Canada). Canadian Neutron Beam Centre
  3. Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy. Rice Center for Quantum Materials; Northwestern Polytechnical Univ., Xi'an (China). Dept. of Applied Physics
  4. National Inst. of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States). NIST Center for Neutron Research
  5. National Inst. of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States). NIST Center for Neutron Research; Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering
  6. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States). Dept. of Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science
  7. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Quantum Condensed Matter Division
  8. Paul Scherrer Inst. (PSI), Villigen (Switzerland). Swiss Light Source; Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). Beijing National Lab. for Condensed Matter Physics. Inst. of Physics
  9. Paul Scherrer Inst. (PSI), Villigen (Switzerland). Swiss Light Source
  10. Renmin Univ. of China, Beijing (China). Dept. of Physics. Beijing Key Lab. of Opto-electronic Functional Materials & Micro-nano Devices; Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ. (China). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy; Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing (China)

Iron-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.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States); Paul Scherrer Inst. (PSI), Villigen (Switzerland); Renmin Univ. of China, Beijing (China); Northwestern Polytechnical Univ., Xi'an (China)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Robert A. Welch Foundation (United States); National Science Foundation (NSF); Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany); Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (China); Research Funds of Remnin University of China; National Key Research and Development Program of China; Shaanxi International Cooperation Program (China)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; AC02-98CH10886; SC0012311; C-1839; C-1818; C-1411; DMR-1350237; DMR-1611392; 200021L 141325; 11374361; 51471135; 14XNLF08; 2016YFB1100101
OSTI ID:
1427592
Journal Information:
Nature Communications, Vol. 7; ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 32 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (16)

Disorder induced power-law gaps in an insulator–metal Mott transition journal October 2018
Putative hybridization gap in CaMn 2 Bi 2 under applied pressure journal July 2019
Anisotropic magnetic excitations of a frustrated bilinear-biquadratic spin model: Implications for spin waves of detwinned iron pnictides journal January 2020
Orbital-selective Mott phase in multiorbital models for iron pnictides and chalcogenides journal September 2017
Local breaking of fourfold rotational symmetry by short-range magnetic order in heavily overdoped Ba ( Fe 1 x Cu x ) 2 As 2 journal October 2017
Correlation-driven metal-insulator transition in proximity to an iron-based superconductor journal November 2017
Electronic and spin dynamics in the insulating iron pnictide NaFe 0.5 Cu 0.5 As journal December 2017
Spin-isotropic continuum of spin excitations in antiferromagnetically ordered Fe 1.07 Te journal January 2018
Observation of direct evolution from antiferromagnetism to superconductivity in C u 1 x L i x FeAs ( 0 x 1.0 ) journal April 2018
Toward the Mott state with magnetic cluster formation in heavily Cu-doped NaFe 1 x Cu x As journal April 2019
Coexistence of Ferromagnetic and Stripe Antiferromagnetic Spin Fluctuations in SrCo 2 As 2 journal March 2019
Origin of Mott Insulating Behavior and Superconductivity in Twisted Bilayer Graphene journal September 2018
Emergence of novel phenomena on the border of low dimensional spin and charge order journal September 2018
DEMAND, a Dimensional Extreme Magnetic Neutron Diffractometer at the High Flux Isotope Reactor journal December 2018
Emergence of novel phenomena on the border of low dimensional spin and charge order text January 2018
Origin of Mott insulating behavior and superconductivity in twisted bilayer graphene text January 2018