Effect of hybridization on structural and magnetic properties of iron-based superconductors

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that strong hybridization between iron 3d and arsenic 4p orbitals explains key experimental observations in iron-based high-temperature superconductors, including lattice distortion and magnetic properties.

Contribution

It reveals how hybridization accounts for lattice distortion, small magnetic moments, and suppression of magnetic order upon doping in these superconductors.

Findings

Hybridization explains lattice distortion.

Small Fe magnetic moments are due to hybridization.

Doping suppresses lattice distortion and magnetic order.

Abstract

We show that the strong hybridization between the iron 3d and the arsenic 4p orbitals, in the newly discovered iron-based high-T$_{c}$ superconductors, leads to an explanation of certain experimental observations that are presently not well understood. The existence of a lattice distortion, the smallness of the Fe magnetic moment in the undoped systems, and the suppression of both the lattice distortion and the magnetic order upon doping with fluorine, are all shown to result from this hybridization.