Press Release

Abstract

The interplay among magnetism, electronic nematicity, and superconductivity is the key issue in strongly correlated materials including iron-based, cuprate, and heavy-fermion superconductors. Magnetic fluctuations have been widely discussed as a pairing mechanism of unconventional superconductivity, but recent theory predicts that quantum fluctuations of nematic order may also promote high-temperature superconductivity. This has been studied in FeSe1?xSx superconductors exhibiting nonmagnetic nematic and pressure-induced antiferromagnetic orders, but its abrupt suppression of superconductivity at the nematic end point leaves the nematic-fluctuation driven superconductivity unconfirmed. Here we report on systematic studies of high-pressure phase diagrams up to 8?GPa in high-quality single crystals of FeSe1?xTex. When Te composition x(Te) becomes larger than 0.1, the high-pressure magnetic order disappears, whereas the pressure-induced superconducting dome near the nematic end point is continuously found up to x(Te)???0.5. In contrast to FeSe1?xSx, enhanced superconductivity in FeSe1?xTex does not correlate with magnetism but with the suppression of nematicity, highlighting the paramount role of nonmagnetic nematic fluctuations for high-temperature superconductivity in this system.

Article

Title:
High-pressure phase diagrams of FeSe1?xTex: correlation between suppressed nematicity and enhanced superconductivity

Publication:
Nature Communications

Author:

K. Mukasa, K. Matsuura, M. Qiu, M. Saito, Y. Sugimura, K. Ishida, M. Otani, Y. Onishi, Y. Mizukami, K. Hashimoto, J. Gouchi, R. Kumai, Y. Uwatoko,and T. Shibauchi

DOI:
10.1038/s41467-020-20621-2

Published:
15 January 2021