Millimeter-wave study of London penetration depth temperature dependence in Ba(Fe0.926Co0.074)2As2 single crystal

TL;DR

This study measures the temperature dependence of the London penetration depth in a Ba(Fe0.926Co0.074)2As2 superconductor using microwave impedance, revealing a power-law behavior consistent with nodeless pairing and pairbreaking scattering.

Contribution

It introduces a novel sapphire disk quasi-optical resonator for Fe-pnictide superconductors and provides detailed penetration depth measurements supporting extended s-wave pairing symmetry.

Findings

Power-law temperature dependence with n=2.8 suggests nodeless superconductivity.

Low-temperature behavior fits a small-gap exponential model.

Results support extended s-pairing symmetry with pairbreaking effects.

Abstract

In-plane surface Ka-band microwave impedance of optimally doped single crystals of the Fe-based superconductor Ba(Fe0.926Co0.074)2As2 (Tc= 22.8K) was measured. Sensitive sapphire disk quasi-optical resonator with high-Tc cuprate conducting endplates was developed specially for Fe-pnictide superconductors. It allowed finding temperature variation of London penetration depth in a form of power law, namely \Delta \lambda (T)~ Tn with n = 2.8 from low temperatures up to at least 0.6Tc consisted with radio-frequency measurements. This exponent points towards nodeless state with pairbreaking scattering, which can support one of the extended s-pairing symmetries. The dependence \lambda(T) at low temperatures is well described by one superconducting small-gap (\Delta \cong 0.75 in kTc units, where k is Boltzman coefficient) exponential dependence.