Generic Fe buffer layers for Fe-based superconductors: Epitaxial FeSe1-xTex thin films

TL;DR

This paper reports the successful fabrication of high-quality, epitaxial FeSe1-xTex thin films on Fe-buffered MgO substrates, demonstrating promising superconducting properties and strong vortex pinning, advancing Fe-based superconductor applications.

Contribution

It introduces a method to produce epitaxial FeSe1-xTex films with high crystalline quality and superconducting transition temperatures over 17 K on Fe-buffered substrates.

Findings

High crystalline quality with less than 0.9° texture

Superconducting transition temperature over 17 K

Strong volume pinning force due to interlayer matching

Abstract

Biaxially textured FeSe1-xTex films have been realized on Fe-buffered MgO substrates by pulsed laser deposition. Similar to the Fe/BaFe2As2 bilayers, the crystalline quality of FeSe1-xTex films exhibit a sharp out-of-plane and in-plane texture less than 0.9{\deg}. The Fe/FeSe1-xTex bilayers showed high superconducting transition temperatures of over 17 K. The angular-dependent critical current densities exhibit peaks positioned at H // ab similar to other pnictide thin films. The volume pinning force of FeSe1-xTex in this direction is very strong compared with that of Co-doped BaFe2As2, due to a good matching between the interlayer distance in the c direction and the out-of-plane coherence length.