Superconductivity in Fe1+dTe0.9Se0.1 induced by deintercalation of excess Fe using alcoholic beverage treatment

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that heating Fe1+dTe0.9Se0.1 in alcoholic beverages enhances superconductivity by removing excess Fe, suggesting a simple method to improve Fe-chalcogenide superconductors.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, practical alcoholic beverage treatment method to deintercalate excess Fe and enhance superconductivity in Fe-chalcogenide materials.

Findings

Superconductivity was enhanced after alcoholic beverage treatment.

Excess Fe was deintercalated from the interlayer sites.

Shielding volume fractions increased with reduced excess Fe content.

Abstract

Superconductivity in polycrystalline Fe1+dTe0.9Se0.1 was enhanced by heating in alcoholic beverages. We found that part of the excess Fe was deintercalated from the interlayer sites by the treatment and the shielding volume fractions were increased with the reduction of excess Fe content in sample. This behavior is similar to the case of Fe1+dTe1-xSx. Thus the technique of alcoholic beverage treatment can be applied generally to the Fe-chalcogenide superconductors.