High-pressure phase diagrams of FeSe_1-xTe_x: correlation between suppressed nematicity and enhanced superconductivity.

ABSTRACT: The interplay among magnetism, electronic nematicity, and superconductivity is the key issue in strongly correlated materials including iron-based, cuprate, and heavy-fermion superconductors. Magnetic fluctuations have been widely discussed as a pairing mechanism of unconventional superconductivity, but recent theory predicts that quantum fluctuations of nematic order may also promote high-temperature superconductivity. This has been studied in FeSe_1-xS_x superconductors exhibiting nonmagnetic nematic and pressure-induced antiferromagnetic orders, but its abrupt suppression of superconductivity at the nematic end point leaves the nematic-fluctuation driven superconductivity unconfirmed. Here we report on systematic studies of high-pressure phase diagrams up to 8?GPa in high-quality single crystals of FeSe_1-xTe_x. When Te composition x(Te) becomes larger than 0.1, the high-pressure magnetic order disappears, whereas the pressure-induced superconducting dome near the nematic end point is continuously found up to x(Te)???0.5. In contrast to FeSe_1-xS_x, enhanced superconductivity in FeSe_1-xTe_x does not correlate with magnetism but with the suppression of nematicity, highlighting the paramount role of nonmagnetic nematic fluctuations for high-temperature superconductivity in this system.

SUBMITTER: Mukasa K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7810696 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature