Fe-based high temperature superconductivity with Tc=31K bordering an insulating antiferromagnet in (Tl,K)FexSe2 Crystals

TL;DR

This study discovers a new Fe-based superconductor, (Tl,K)FexSe2, which exhibits high-temperature superconductivity at 31K near an insulating antiferromagnetic phase, highlighting the importance of electronic correlations.

Contribution

It demonstrates the existence of a Fe-based high-temperature superconductor near an insulating AFM phase, emphasizing the role of electronic correlations in these materials.

Findings

Identified an insulating AFM phase in (Tl,K)FexSe2.

Induced superconductivity with Tc up to 31K by tuning Fe content.

Showed correlation effects are crucial in Fe-based superconductors.

Abstract

Up to now, there have been two material families, the cuprates and the iron-based compounds with high-temperature superconductivity (HTSC). An essential open question is whether the two classes of materials share the same essential physics. In both, superconductivity (SC) emerges when an antiferromagnetical (AFM) ordered phase is suppressed. However, in cuprates, the repulsive interaction among the electrons is so strong that the parent compounds are "Mott insulators." By contrast, all iron-based parents are metallic. One perspective is that the iron-based parents are weakly correlated and that the AFM arises from a strong "nesting" of the Fermi surfaces. An alternative view is that the electronic correlations in the parents are still sufficiently strong to place the system close to the boundary between itinerancy and electronic localization. A key strategy to differentiate theses views is to explore whether the iron-based system can be tuned into a Mott insulator. Here we identify an insulating AFM in (Tl,K)FexSe2 by introducing Fe-vacancies and creating superconductivity in the Fe-planar. With the increasing Fe-content, the AFM order is reduced. When the magnetism is eliminated, a superconducting phase with Tc as high as 31K (and a Tc onset as high as 40K) is induced. Our findings indicate that the correlation effect plays a crucial role in the iron-based superconductors. (Tl,K)FexSe2, therefore, represents the first Fe-based high temperature superconductor near an insulating AFM.