Surface electronic structure and evidence of plain s-wave superconductivity in (Li0.8Fe0.2)OHFeSe

TL;DR

This study uses STM to analyze the surface electronic structure of (Li0.8Fe0.2)OHFeSe, providing evidence that it is a plain s-wave superconductor with a fully gapped state and no sign change in the order parameter.

Contribution

It offers the first detailed surface and impurity effect analysis of (Li0.8Fe0.2)OHFeSe, revealing its plain s-wave pairing symmetry through STM and QPI measurements.

Findings

Superconducting gap is fully open with double coherence peaks.

Impurities affect superconductivity differently based on magnetic properties.

Evidence suggests a plain s-wave pairing symmetry.

Abstract

(Li0.8Fe0.2)OHFeSe is a newly-discovered intercalated iron-selenide superconductor with a Tc above 40 K, which is much higher than the Tc of bulk FeSe (8 K). Here we report a systematic study of (Li0.8Fe0.2)OHFeSe by low temperature scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). We observed two kinds of surface terminations, namely FeSe and (Li0.8Fe0.2)OH surfaces. On the FeSe surface, the superconducting state is fully gapped with double coherence peaks, and a vortex core state with split peaks near EF is observed. Through quasi-particle interference (QPI) measurements, we clearly observed intra- and inter-pocket scatterings in between the electron pockets at the M point, as well as some evidence of scattering that connects gamma and M points. Upon applying magnetic field, the QPI intensity of all the scattering channels are found to behave similarly. Furthermore, we studied impurity effects on the superconductivity by investigating intentionally introduced impurities and intrinsic defects. We observed that magnetic impurities such as Cr adatoms can induce in-gap states and suppress superconductivity. However, nonmagnetic impurities such as Zn adatoms do not induce visible in-gap states. Meanwhile, we show that Zn adatoms can induce in-gap states in thick FeSe films, which is believed to have an (s+-)wave pairing symmetry. Our experimental results suggest it is likely that (Li0.8Fe0.2)OHFeSe is a plain s-wave superconductor, whose order parameter has the same sign on all Fermi surface sections.