skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Stripes developed at the strong limit of nematicity in FeSe film

Journal Article · · Nature Physics
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys4186· OSTI ID:1425888
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [3];  [3]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [5];  [3];  [6];  [5]; ORCiD logo [6];  [7]; ORCiD logo [8];  [7]
  1. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China). State Key Lab. of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics. Dept. of Physics; Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing (China); SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Stanford Inst. for Materials and Energy Sciences
  2. Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing (China); SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Stanford Inst. for Materials and Energy Sciences; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Advanced Light Source; Peking Univ., Beijing (China). International Center for Quantum Materials. School of Physics
  3. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China). State Key Lab. of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics. Dept. of Physics
  4. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Advanced Light Source
  5. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Stanford Inst. for Materials and Energy Sciences
  6. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource
  7. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China). State Key Lab. of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics. Dept. of Physics; Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing (China)
  8. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Stanford Inst. for Materials and Energy Sciences. Dept. of Physics and Applied Physics. Geballe Lab. for Advanced Materials

A single monolayer of iron selenide grown on strontium titanate shows an impressive enhancement of superconductivity compared with the bulk, as well as a novel Fermi surface topology 2-5, extreme two-dimensionality, and the possibility of phonon-enhanced electron pairing. For films thicker than one unit cell, however, the electronic structure is markedly different, with a drastically suppressed superconductivity and strong nematicity appearing 1,5. The physics driving this extraordinary dichotomy of superconducting behaviour is far from clear. Here, we use low-temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy to study multilayers of iron selenide grown by molecular beam epitaxy, and find a stripe-type charge ordering instability that develops beneath the nematic state. The charge ordering is visible and pinned in the vicinity of impurities. And as it emerges in the strong limit of nematicity, it suggests that a magnetic fluctuation with a rather small wavevector may be competing with the ordinary collinear antiferromagnetic ordering in multilayer films. The existence of stripes in iron-based superconductors, which resemble the stripe order in cuprates, not only suggests that electronic anisotropy and correlation are playing an important role, but also provides a platform for probing the complex interactions between nematicity, charge ordering, magnetism and superconductivity in high-temperature superconductors.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Science Foundation (NSF); Ministry of Science and Technology of China
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515; AC02-05CH11231; 11674191; 2016YFA0301002
OSTI ID:
1425888
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1437971
Journal Information:
Nature Physics, Vol. 13, Issue 10; ISSN 1745-2473
Publisher:
Nature Publishing Group (NPG)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 26 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (33)

Symmetry-breaking orbital anisotropy observed for detwinned Ba(Fe1-xCox)2As2 above the spin density wave transition journal April 2011
Itinerancy-Enhanced Quantum Fluctuation of Magnetic Moments in Iron-Based Superconductors journal September 2015
Field-induced superconducting phase of FeSe in the BCS-BEC cross-over journal November 2014
Interface-induced superconductivity and strain-dependent spin density waves in FeSe/SrTiO3 thin films journal May 2013
Superconductivity in the PbO-type structure  -FeSe journal September 2008
Spin waves and magnetic exchange interactions in CaFe2As2 journal July 2009
Ferro-Orbital Order and Strong Magnetic Anisotropy in the Parent Compounds of Iron-Pnictide Superconductors journal December 2009
Direct observation of spin–orbit coupling in iron-based superconductors journal December 2015
Dumbbell Defects in FeSe Films: A Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and First-Principles Investigation journal June 2016
Interface-Induced High-Temperature Superconductivity in Single Unit-Cell FeSe Films on SrTiO 3 journal March 2012
Electronic liquid-crystal phases of a doped Mott insulator journal June 1998
Suppression of Superconductivity by Twin Boundaries in FeSe journal September 2012
Phase diagram and electronic indication of high-temperature superconductivity at 65 K in single-layer FeSe films journal May 2013
Uniaxial-strain mechanical detwinning of CaFe 2 As 2 and BaFe 2 As 2 crystals: Optical and transport study journal May 2010
Electronic origin of high-temperature superconductivity in single-layer FeSe superconductor journal January 2012
Interfacial mode coupling as the origin of the enhancement of Tc in FeSe films on SrTiO3 journal November 2014
Electronic nematicity above the structural and superconducting transition in BaFe2(As1−xP x )2 journal June 2012
Impurity-induced electronic nematic state and C 2 -symmetric nanostructures in iron pnictide superconductors journal June 2012
In-Plane Resistivity Anisotropy in an Underdoped Iron Arsenide Superconductor journal August 2010
Evidence for unidirectional nematic bond ordering in FeSe journal November 2016
Dome-shaped magnetic order competing with high-temperature superconductivity at high pressures in FeSe journal July 2016
Coexistence of superconductivity and magnetism in FeSe 1 x under pressure journal February 2012
Visualization of electron nematicity and unidirectional antiferroic fluctuations at high temperatures in NaFeAs journal February 2014
Strong cooperative coupling of pressure-induced magnetic order and nematicity in FeSe journal September 2016
Nematic Electronic Structure in the “Parent” State of the Iron-Based Superconductor Ca(Fe 1– x Co x ) 2 As 2 journal January 2010
Spin Waves and Magnetic Exchange Interactions in CaFe2As2 text January 2009
Interface induced high temperature superconductivity in single unit-cell FeSe films on SrTiO3 text January 2012
Electronic Origin of High Temperature Superconductivity in Single-Layer FeSe Superconductor text January 2012
Visualization of Electron Nematicity and Unidirectional Antiferroic Fluctuations at High Temperatures in NaFeAs text January 2013
Interfacial mode coupling as the origin of the enhancement of Tc in FeSe films on SrTiO3 text January 2013
Reconstruction of Band Structure Induced by Electronic Nematicity in an FeSe Superconductor text January 2014
Direct observation of spin-orbit coupling in iron-based superconductors text January 2014
Field-induced superconducting phase of FeSe in the BCS-BEC cross-over text January 2014

Cited By (12)

Discovery of a strain-stabilised smectic electronic order in LiFeAs journal July 2018
Nematicity, magnetism and superconductivity in FeSe journal December 2017
Superconducting selenides intercalated with organic molecules: synthesis, crystal structure, electric and magnetic properties, superconducting properties, and phase separation in iron based-chalcogenides and hybrid organic-inorganic superconductors journal May 2018
Charge ordering in high-temperature superconductors visualized by scanning tunneling microscopy journal October 2019
Spectroscopic evidence of nematic fluctuations in LiFeAs journal July 2019
Study of intrinsic defect states of FeSe with scanning tunneling microscopy journal October 2019
Theoretical study of impurity-induced magnetism in FeSe journal January 2019
Antiferromagnetic Order in Epitaxial FeSe Films on SrTiO 3 journal February 2018
Orbital Origin of Extremely Anisotropic Superconducting Gap in Nematic Phase of FeSe Superconductor journal August 2018
Charge Density Wave and Spin Density Wave in Two-Orbital Model for Iron-Based Superconductors journal June 2018
Theoretical study of impurity-induced magnetism in FeSe text January 2018
Discovery of a strain-stabilised smectic electronic order in LiFeAs text January 2018

Similar Records

Strong interplay between stripe spin fluctuations, nematicity and superconductivity in FeSe
Journal Article · Mon Dec 07 00:00:00 EST 2015 · Nature Materials · OSTI ID:1425888

Nematicity in stripe ordered cuprates probed via resonant x-ray scattering
Journal Article · Fri Feb 05 00:00:00 EST 2016 · Science · OSTI ID:1425888

Distinctive orbital anisotropy observed in the nematic state of a FeSe thin film
Journal Article · Mon Sep 26 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Physical Review B · OSTI ID:1425888