Elastoresistivity of heavily hole doped 122 iron pnictides superconductors

Abstract

Nematicity in the heavily hole-doped iron pnictide superconductors remains controversial. Sizeable nematic fluctuations and even nematic orders far from a magnetic instability were declared in RbFe${}_2$As${}_2$ and its sister compounds. Here we report a systematic elastoresistance study of series of isovalent- and electron-doped KFe${}_2$As${}_2$ crystals. We found divergent elastoresistance upon cooling for all the crystals along their [110] direction. The amplitude of elastoresistivity diverges if K is substituted with larger ions or if the system is driven towards a Lifshitz transition. However, we conclude none of them necessarily indicates an independent nematic critical point. Instead, the increased nematicity can be associated with another electronic criticality. In particular, we propose a mechanism how elastoresistivity is enhanced at a Lifshitz transition.

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