Visualizing the microscopic coexistence of spin density wave and superconductivity in underdoped NaFe1-xCoxAs

Abstract

Although the origin of high temperature superconductivity in the iron pnictides is still under debate, it is widely believed that magnetic interactions or fluctuations play an important role in triggering Cooper pairing. Because of the relevance of magnetism to pairing, the question of whether long range spin magnetic order can coexist with superconductivity microscopically has attracted strong interests. The available experimental methods used to answer this question are either bulk probes or local ones without control of probing position, thus the answers range from mutual exclusion to homogeneous coexistence. To definitively answer this question, here we use scanning tunneling microscopy to investigate the local electronic structure of an underdoped NaFe1-xCoxAs near the spin density wave (SDW) and superconducting (SC) phase boundary. Spatially resolved spectroscopy directly reveal both the SDW and SC gap features at the same atomic location, providing compelling evidence for the microscopic coexistence of the two phases. The strengths of the SDW and SC features are shown to anti correlate with each other, indicating the competition of the two orders. The microscopic coexistence clearly indicates that Cooper pairing occurs when portions of the Fermi surface (FS) are already gapped by the SDW order. The regime TC < T < TSDW thus show a strong resemblance to the pseudogap phase of the cuprates where growing experimental evidences suggest a FS reconstruction due to certain density wave order. In this phase of the pnictides, the residual FS has a favorable topology for magnetically mediated pairing when the ordering moment of the SDW is small.

18 pages, 4 figures

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• Identifying the `Fingerprint' of Antiferromagnetic Spin-Fluctuations on Iron-Pnictide Superconductivity
• Correlation of Fe-based Superconductivity and Electron-Phonon Coupling in an FeAs/Oxide Heterostructure
• Charge Density Wave order and electron-phonon coupling in ternary superconductor Bi${}_2$Rh${}_3$Se${}_2$
• Ultrafast Optical Spectroscopy Evidence of Pseudogap and Electron-Phonon Coupling in an Iron-Based Superconductor KCa${}_2$Fe${}_4$As${}_4$F${}_2$
• Strong-Coupling Superconductivity in NaFe${}_{1-x}$Co${}_x$As: the Eliashberg Theory and Beyond
• Electron and Superconducting Properties of the AFeAs (A= Li, Na) Family Alkali-Metal Pnictides: Current Stage of the Research (mini-review)
• Doping dependence of the anisotropic quasiparticle interference in NaFe1-xCoxAs iron-based superconductors
• Pairing insights in iron-based superconductors from scanning tunneling microscopy
• Thermodynamic signatures of an antiferromagnetic quantum critical point inside a superconducting dome
• Induced spin-triplet pairing in the coexistence state of antiferromagnetism and singlet superconductivity: collective modes and microscopic properties
• Coexistence of charge and ferromagnetic order in fcc Fe
• Phase Separation, Competition, and Volume Fraction Control in NaFe${}_{1-x}$Co${}_x$As
• Microscopic coexistence of a two-component incommensurate spin density wave with superconductivity in underdoped NaFe${}_{0.983}$Co${}_{0.017}$As
• Spin-pairing and penetration depth measurements from nuclear magnetic resonance in NaFe${}_{0.975}$Co${}_{0.025}$As
• Anomalous connection between antiferromagnetic and superconducting phases in pressurized non-centrosymmetric heavy fermion compound CeRhGe3
• Orbital selective neutron spin resonance in underdoped superconducting NaFe${}_{\text{0.985}}$Co${}_{\text{0.015}}$As
• Neutron spin resonance as a probe of superconducting gap anisotropy in partially detwinned electron underdoped NaFe${}_{0.985}$Co${}_{0.015}$As
• Local transformation of the Electronic Structure and Generation of Free Carriers in Cuprates and Ferropnictides under Heterovalent and Isovalent Doping
• Electronic inhomogeneities in the superconducting phase of CaFe1.96Ni0.04As2 single crystals
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• Tunable Competing Electronic Orders in Double Quantum Spin Hall Superlattices
• Proximity-induced charge density wave in a metallic system