Critical Behavior of the SDW Transition in Underdoped Ba(Fe1-xCox)2As2 (x <=0.05): 75As NMR Investigation

TL;DR

This study uses 75As NMR to explore the critical behavior of the SDW transition in underdoped Ba(Fe1-xCox)2As2, revealing a strong interplay between structural and magnetic transitions and identifying critical slowing down near T_SDW.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the critical dynamics of SDW transition and the coupling between structural distortion and spin correlations in underdoped iron-based superconductors.

Findings

Critical slowing down occurs at the structural transition temperature T_s.

The dynamical structure factor exhibits a power-law divergence near T_SDW.

Critical exponent a is approximately 0.33.

Abstract

We investigate the nature of the SDW (Spin Density Wave) transition in the underdoped regime of an iron-based high Tc superconductor Ba(Fe1-xCox)2As2 by 75As NMR, with primary focus on a composition with x = 0.02 (T_SDW = 99 K).We demonstrate that critical slowing down toward the three dimensional SDW transition sets in at the tetragonal to orthorhombic structural phase transition, Ts = 105 K, suggesting strong interplay between structural distortion and spin correlations. In the critical regime between Ts and T_SDW, the dynamical structure factor of electron spins S(q,Wn) measured with the longitudinal NMR relaxation rate 1/T1 exhibits a divergent behavior obeying a power law, 1/T1~S(q, Wn)~(T/T_SDW-1)^a with the critical exponent a ~ 0.33.