Low-energy spin excitations in optimally doped CaFe${}_{0.88}$Co${}_{0.12}$AsF superconductor studied with inelastic neutron scattering

Abstract

There are few inelastic neutron scattering (INS) reports on the superconducting single crystals of FeAs-1111 system, even though it was first discovered in 2008, due to the extreme difficulty in large single crystal growth. In this paper, we have studied the low-energy spin excitations in the optimally electron-doped CaFe${}_{0.88}$Co${}_{0.12}$AsF single crystals with $T_{\mathrm{c}}$ = 21 K by INS. The resonance energy of the superconducting spin resonant mode with $E_{\mathrm{r}}$ = 12 meV amounts to 6.6 $k_{\mathrm{B}}$$T_{\mathrm{c}}$, which constitutes the largest $E_{\mathrm{r}}$/$k_{\mathrm{B}}$$T_{\mathrm{c}}$ ratio among iron-based superconductors reported to date. The large ratio implies a strong coupling between conduction electrons and magnetic excitations in CaFe${}_{0.88}$Co${}_{0.12}$AsF. The resonance possesses a magnonlike upward dispersion along transverse direction due to the anisotropy of spin-spin correlation length within $ab$ plane in the normal-state, which points to a spin fluctuation mediated sign-reversed $s\pm$ wave pairing in CaFe${}_{0.88}$Co${}_{0.12}$AsF.