Absence of superconductivity in the hole-doped Fe pnictide Ba(Fe1−xMnx)2As2: Photoemission and x-ray absorption spectroscopy studies

Abstract

We have studied the electronic structure of Ba(Fe1−xMnx)2As2 (x=0.08), which fails to become a superconductor in spite of the formal hole doping like Ba1−xKxFe2As2, with photoemission spectroscopy and x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS). With decreasing temperature, a transition from the paramagnetic phase to the antiferromagnetic phase was clearly observed by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. XAS results indicated that the substituted Mn atoms form a strongly hybridized ground state. Resonance-photoemission spectra at the Mn L3 edge revealed that the Mn 3d partial density of states is distributed over a wide energy range of 2–13 eV below the Fermi level (EF), with little contribution around EF. This indicates that the dopant Mn 3d states are localized in spite of the strong Mn 3d–As 4p hybridization and split into the occupied and unoccupied parts due to the on-site Coulomb and exchange interaction. The absence of superconductivity in Ba(Fe1−xMnx)2As2 can thus be ascribed both to the absence of carrier doping in the FeAs plane and to the stabilization of the competing G-type antiferromagnetic order by the Mn impurities.

Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval

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