Speaker
Aliaksei Charnukha
(Max Planck Institute for Solid State research)
Description
A. Charnukha,1 A. Cvitkovic,2 T. Prokscha,3 D. Pr¨opper,1 N. Ocelic,2 A. Suter,3 Z. Salman,3
E. Morenzoni,3 J. Deisenhofer,4 V. Tsurkan,4, 5 A. Loidl,4 B. Keimer,1 and A. V. Boris1
1Max-Planck-Institut f¨ur Festk¨orperforschung, Heisenbergstrasse 1, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany
2Neaspec GmbH, D-82152 Martinsried (Munich), Germany
3Laboratory for Muon Spin Spectroscopy, Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
4Experimental Physics V, Center for Electronic Correlations and Magnetism,
Institute of Physics, University of Augsburg, D-86159 Augsburg, Germany
5Institute of Applied Physics, Academy of Sciences of Moldova, MD-2028 Chisinau, R. Moldova
We studied phase separation in a single-crystalline antiferromagnetic superconductor Rb2Fe4Se5 (RFS) using a combination of scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) and low-energy muon spin rotation (LE-mSR). We demonstrate that the antiferromagnetic and superconducting phases segregate into nanometer-thick layers perpendicular to the iron-selenide planes, while the characteristic in-plane size of the metallic domains reaches 10 mm. By means of LE-mSR we further show that in a 40-nm thick surface layer the ordered antiferromagnetic moment is drastically reduced, while the volume fraction of the paramagnetic phase is significantly enhanced over its bulk value. Self-organization into a quasiregular heterostructure indicates an intimate connection between the modulated superconducting and antiferromagnetic phases.
Author
Aliaksei Charnukha
(Max Planck Institute for Solid State research)
