Evidence for Pauli-limiting behaviour at high fields and enhanced upper critical fields near T_c in several disordered FeAs based Superconductors

TL;DR

This study investigates the upper critical field behavior in disordered FeAs-based superconductors, revealing evidence of Pauli-limiting effects at high fields and how disorder influences superconducting properties.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of Pauli-limiting behavior in disordered FeAs superconductors, linking disorder to high-field superconducting limits.

Findings

Enhanced upper critical field near T_c

Evidence of Pauli-limiting behavior at high fields

Disorder influences B_c2(T) flattening

Abstract

We report resistivity and upper critical field B_c2(T) data for disordered (As deficient) LaO_0.9F_0.1FeAs_1-delta in a wide temperature and high field range up to 60 T. These samples exhibit a slightly enhanced superconducting transition at T_c = 28.5 K and a significantly enlarged slope dB_c2/dT = -5.4 T/K near T_c which contrasts with a flattening of B_c2(T) starting near 23 K above 30 T. The latter evidences Pauli limiting behaviour (PLB) with B_c2(0) approximately 63 T. We compare our results with B_c2(T)-data from the literature for clean and disordered samples. Whereas clean samples show almost no PLB for fields below 60 to 70 T, the hitherto unexplained pronounced flattening of B_c2(T) for applied fields H II ab observed for several disordered closely related systems is interpreted also as a manifestation of PLB. Consequences are discussed in terms of disorder effects within the frames of (un)conventional superconductivity, respectively.