A Mott insulator continuously connected to iron pnictide superconductors
- Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy. Rice Center for Quantum Materials
- Chalk River Labs., ON (Canada). Canadian Neutron Beam Centre
- 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
- National Inst. of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States). NIST Center for Neutron Research
- 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
- Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States). Dept. of Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Quantum Condensed Matter Division
- 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
- Paul Scherrer Inst. (PSI), Villigen (Switzerland). Swiss Light Source
- 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
Web of Science
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