Superconductivity-induced optical anomaly in an iron arsenide

A. Charnukha, P. Popovich, Y. Matiks, D. L. Sun, C. T. Lin, A. N. Yaresko, B. Keimer and A. V. Boris ()
Additional contact information
A. Charnukha: Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung
P. Popovich: Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung
Y. Matiks: Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung
D. L. Sun: Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung
C. T. Lin: Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung
A. N. Yaresko: Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung
B. Keimer: Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung
A. V. Boris: Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung

Nature Communications, 2011, vol. 2, issue 1, 1-5

Abstract: Abstract One of the central tenets of conventional theories of superconductivity, including most models proposed for the recently discovered iron-pnictide superconductors, is the notion that only electronic excitations with energies comparable to the superconducting energy gap are affected by the transition. Here, we report the results of a comprehensive spectroscopic ellipsometry study of a high-quality crystal of superconducting Ba0.68K0.32Fe2As2 that challenges this notion. We observe a superconductivity-induced suppression of an absorption band at an energy of 2.5 eV, two orders of magnitude above the superconducting gap energy 2Δ≈20 meV. On the basis of density functional calculations, this band can be assigned to transitions from As-p to Fe-d orbitals crossing the Fermi level. We identify a related effect at the spin-density wave transition in parent compounds of the 122 family. This suggests that As-p states deep below the Fermi level contribute to the formation of the superconducting and spin-density wave states in the iron arsenides.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms1223 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:2:y:2011:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms1223

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1223

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().