Evolution of quasiparticle excitations with critical mass enhancement in superconducting AFe2As2 (A = K, Rb, and Cs)

TL;DR

This study investigates how increasing effective mass in heavily hole-doped AFe2As2 superconductors influences their superconducting gap and quasiparticle excitations, revealing a transition towards unconventional behavior near quantum criticality.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed measurement of the low-temperature London penetration depth across different AFe2As2 compounds, linking mass enhancement to changes in superconducting gap anisotropy and quantum critical fluctuations.

Findings

Power-law temperature dependence of superfluid stiffness indicates robust gap anisotropy.

Exponent α increases with mass, approaching 1.5 in CsFe2As2.

Results suggest proximity to antiferromagnetic quantum critical points affects quasiparticle excitations.

Abstract

In the heavily hole-doped iron-based superconductors $A$Fe$_2$As$_2$ ($A=$ K, Rb, and Cs), the electron effective mass increases rapidly with alkali-ion radius. To study how the mass enhancement affects the superconducting state, we measure the London penetration depth $\lambda(T)$ in clean crystals of $A$Fe$_2$As$_2$ down to low temperature $T\sim0.1$ K. In all systems, the superfluid stiffness $\rho_s(T)=\lambda^2(0)/\lambda^2(T)$ can be approximated by a power-law $T$ dependence at low temperatures, indicating the robustness of strong momentum anisotropy in the superconducting gap $\Delta(k)$. The power $\alpha$ increases from $\sim1$ with mass enhancement and approaches an unconventional exponent $\alpha\sim 1.5$ in the heaviest CsFe$_2$As$_2$. This appears to be a hallmark of superconductors near antiferromagnetic quantum critical points, where the quasiparticles excited across the anisotropic $\Delta(k)$ are significantly influenced by the momentum dependence of quantum critical fluctuations.