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Large decrease in the critical temperature of superconducting LaFeAsO0.85 compounds doped with 3% atomic weight of nonmagnetic Zn impurities

Source: Phys. Rev. B 82, 054506 (2010); doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.82.054506

Published 5 August 2010

PACS
  • 74.62.Dh
    Effects of crystal defects, doping and substitution on superconducting transition temperature
  • 74.25.Dw
    Superconductivity phase diagrams
  • 74.62.Bf
    Effects of material synthesis, crystal structure, and chemical composition on superconducting transition temperature
  • 74.70.Dd
    Superconducting ternary, quaternary and multinary compounds
  • YEAR: 2010
PUBLICATION DATA
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Y. F. Guo,1 Y. G. Shi,2 S. Yu,3 A. A. Belik,1,2 Y. Matsushita,4 M. Tanaka,4 Y. Katsuya,5 K. Kobayashi,4 I. Nowik,6 I. Felner,6 V. P. S. Awana,1,7 K. Yamaura,2,3 and E. Takayama-Muromachi2
1International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan
2Transformative Research-Project on Iron Pnictides (TRIP), JST, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, 305-0044 Ibaraki, Japan
3Superconducting Materials Center, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, 305-0044 Ibaraki, Japan
4NIMS Beamline Station at SPring-8, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1-1 Kouto, Sayo-cho, Sayo-gun, Hyogo 679-5148, Japan
5SPring-8 Service Co. Ltd., 1-1-1 Kouto, Sayo-cho, Sayo-gun, Hyogo 679-5148, Japan
6Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
7National Physical Laboratory, Dr. K.S. Krishnan Marg, New Delhi 110 012, India
We observed a large decrease in Tc by no more than 3  at. % of Zn doped into the Tc-optimized superconductor LaFeAsO0.85 (Tc=26  K), confirmed by measurements of electrical resistivity, magnetic susceptibility, specific heat, Mössbauer spectroscopy, Hall coefficient, and an electron probe microanalysis. The rate ~9  K/% is remarkably higher than others achieved by nonmagnetic impurities. The Tc suppression is likely due to pair breaking caused by scattering associated with the highly localized electronic state of Zn in the Fe2As2 layer. If this is true, the present result well accords with the theoretical prediction that suggests a sign reversal s-wave pairing model for the Fe-pnictide superconductors. ©2010 The American Physical Society
History: Received 12 June 2010; revised 19 July 2010; published 5 August 2010
Permalink: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v82/e054506
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