Imaging the real space structure of the spin fluctuations in an iron-based superconductor
Abstract
Spin fluctuations are a leading candidate for the pairing mechanism in high temperature superconductors, supported by the common appearance of a distinct resonance in the spin susceptibility across the cuprates, iron-based superconductors and many heavy fermion materials1. The information we have about the spin resonance comes almost exclusively from neutron scattering. Here we demonstrate that by using low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy we can characterize the spin resonance in real space. We establish that inelastic tunneling leads to the characteristic "dip-hump" feature seen in tunneling spectra in high temperature superconductors and that this feature arises from excitations of the spin fluctuations. Spatial mapping of this feature near defects allows us to probe non-local properties of the spin susceptibility and to image its real space structure.
Citation
Chi , S , Aluru , R K P , Grothe , S , Kreisel , A , Singh , U R , Andersen , B M , Hardy , W N , Liang , R , Bonn , D A , Burke , S A & Wahl , P 2017 , ' Imaging the real space structure of the spin fluctuations in an iron-based superconductor ' , Nature Communications , vol. 8 , 15996 . https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15996
Publication
Nature Communications
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2041-1723Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2017, the Authors. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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