Coexistence of magnetic fluctuations and superconductivity in SmFe0.95Co0.05AsO seen in 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy

Abstract

The Mössbauer spectra (MS) of powder samples of SmFe1−xCoxAsO (x = 0.0, 0.05, and 0.1) were measured in applied fields up to 9 T and at temperatures up to 298 K. SmFeAsO is magnetically ordered with TN = 137 K and has a hyperfine magnetic field of (4.98 ± 0.18) T at 4.2 K. In applied magnetic fields, the MS is consistent with a distribution of hyperfine magnetic fields of width Happlied+Hhyperfine. This arises because the angles between the direction of the ordered field in the crystallites making up the sample are randomly distributed about the direction of the applied field. The MS of the superconductors SmFe0.95Co0.05AsO (TC≃5 K) and SmFe0.9Co0.1AsO (TC≃17 K) are well described by a single peak from room temperature to 4.2 K indicating the absence of static magnetic order. However, the half width at half maximum, Γ, of the peak in SmFe0.95Co0.05AsO increases with decreasing temperature from its high temperature value, 0.13 mm/s at 25 K, to 0.25 mm/s at 10 K. No such temperature dependence is seen in SmFe0.9Co0.1AsO. We analyze this temperature dependence in terms of a fluctuating hyperfine magnetic field model whose frequency at 4.2 K is found to be ∼5–10 MHz, giving direct evidence of coexisting magnetic fluctuations and superconductivity at the interface in the phase diagram between the regions with magnetic and superconducting order. In a 5 T applied field, SmFe0.95Co0.05AsO is no longer superconducting; however, the temperature-dependent fluctuating magnetic field is still present and largely unchanged. The absence of fluctuations in superconducting SmFe0.9Co0.1AsO and their presence in superconducting SmFe0.95Co0.05AsO in zero applied field and in nonsuperconducting SmFe0.95Co0.05AsO at 5 T suggests that magnetic order is in competition with superconductivity in SmFe1−xCoxAsO.

Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval

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