Local Structure and Hyperfine Interactions of 57Fe in NaFeAs Studied by Mossbauer Spectroscopy

TL;DR

This study uses Mossbauer spectroscopy to analyze the local structure and hyperfine interactions of 57Fe in NaFeAs, revealing insights into magnetic phase transitions and electronic structure changes across different temperatures.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of hyperfine interactions and magnetic structure models in NaFeAs, highlighting the first-order nature of its magnetic transition.

Findings

Weak effect of structural transition on iron electronic structure

Continuous distribution of hyperfine fields below TN

Magnetic transition is first-order, with anisotropic electron redistribution

Abstract

Detailed 57Fe Mossbauer spectroscopy measurements on superconducting NaFeAs powder samples have been performed in the temperature range 13 K < T < 300 K. The 57Fe spectra recorded in the paramagnetic range (T > TN ~ 46 K) were discussed supposing that most of the Fe2+ ions are located in distorted (FeAs4) tetrahedral of NaFeAs phase, while additional minor (< 10%) component of the spectra corresponds to impurity or intergrowth NaFe2As2 phase with a nominal composition near "NaFe2As2". Our results reveal that the structural transition (TS ~ 55K) has a weak effect on the electronic structure of iron ions, while at T < TN the spectra show a continuous distribution of hyperfine fields HFe . Shape of these spectra was analyzed in term of two models: (i) an incommensurate spin density wave modulation of iron magnetic structure, (ii) a formation of a microdomain structure or phase separation. It was shown that the hyperfine parameters obtained using these two methods have very similar values over the whole temperature range. The analysis of the temperature dependence HFe(T) with the Bean-Rodbell model leads to ksi = 1.16 +/- 0.05, suggesting that the magnetic phase transition is first-order in nature. A sharp evolution of the VZZ(T) and etha(T) parameters of the full Hamiltonian of hyperfine interactions near T ~ (TN, TS), were interpreted as a manifestation of the anisotropic electron redistribution between the dxz, dyz- and dxy-orbitals of the iron ions.