Macroscopic phase separation of superconductivity and ferromagnetism in Sr0.5Ce0.5FBiS2-xSex revealed by mu SR
Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
Abstract
The compound Sr0.5Ce0.5FBiS2 belongs to the intensively studied family of layered BiS2 superconductors. It attracts special attention because superconductivity at T-sc = 2.8 K was found to coexist with local-moment ferromagnetic order with a Curie temperature T-C = 7.5 K. Recently it was reported that upon replacing S by Se T-C drops and ferromagnetism becomes of an itinerant nature. At the same time T-sc increases and it was argued superconductivity coexists with itinerant ferromagnetism. Here we report a muon spin rotation and relaxation study (mu SR) conducted to investigate the coexistence of superconductivity and ferromagnetic order in Sr0.5Ce0.5FBiS2-xSex with x = 0.5 and 1.0. By inspecting the muon asymmetry function we find that both phases do not coexist on the microscopic scale, but occupy different sample volumes. For x = 0.5 and x = 1.0 we find a ferromagnetic volume fraction of similar to 8 % and similar to 30 % at T = 0.25 K, well below T-C = 3.4 K and T-C = 3.3 K, respectively. For x = 1.0 (T-sc = 2.9 K) the superconducting phase occupies most (similar to 64 %) of the remaining sample volume, as shown by transverse field experiments that probe the Gaussian damping due to the vortex lattice. We conclude ferromagnetism and superconductivity are macroscopically phase separated.
Details
Original language | English |
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Article number | 17370 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Scientific reports |
Volume | 7 |
Publication status | Published - 12 Dec 2017 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
External IDs
Scopus | 85037720981 |
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Keywords
Keywords
- COEXISTENCE, STATE