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Suppression of superconductivity by anisotropic strain near a nematic quantum critical point

Nature Physics volume 16, pages 1189–1193 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

In most unconventional and high-temperature superconductors, superconductivity emerges as a nearby symmetry-breaking phase is suppressed by chemical doping or pressure1,2,3,4,5,6,7. This has led to the belief that the fluctuations associated with the symmetry-breaking phase are beneficial, if not responsible, for the superconducting pairing8,9. A direct test to verify this hypothesis is to observe a decrease of the superconducting critical temperature (Tc) by applying the symmetry-breaking conjugate field that suppresses the dynamic fluctuations of the competing order. However, most of the competing phases in unconventional superconductors break translational symmetry, requiring a spatially modulated conjugate field that is difficult to realize experimentally. Here, we show that anisotropic strain, the conjugate field of nematicity, reduces the Tc of an iron pnictide. For optimally doped samples we show a fivefold reduction of Tc with less than one per cent of strain. For underdoped samples, Tc becomes zero yielding a fully metallic ground state. In addition to providing direct evidence of the role played by the nematic fluctuations in the formation of the superconducting state, these results demonstrate tunable mechanical control of a high-temperature superconductor, an important step forward for technological applications of superconductivity.

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Fig. 1: Background and superconducting transition in Ba(Fe0.958Co0.042)2As2 under uniaxial stress.
Fig. 2: Strain-tuned superconductor-to-metal transition in Ba(Fe0.958Co0.042)2As2.
Fig. 3: Strained superconducting transition of optimally and overdoped Ba(Fe1–xCox)2As2.
Fig. 4: Strain tunability of superconducting Tc in Ba(Fe1–xCox)2As2.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We thank X. Xu, D. Cobden, B. Spivak, S. Kivelson and C. Xu for discussions. This work was mainly supported by NSF MRSEC at UW (DMR-1719797) and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s EPiQS Initiative, grant GBMF6759 to J.-H.C. The development of strain instrumentation is supported as part of Programmable Quantum Materials, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (BES), under award DE-SC0019443. The integration of X-ray diffraction with in situ strain is supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program under grant FA9550-17-1-0217 and the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program Award FA9550-19-1-0180. J.L. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation under grant no. DMR-1848269. J.-H.C. acknowledges the support of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the State of Washington funded Clean Energy Institute.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Paul Malinowski, Qianni Jiang, Joshua J. Sanchez, Joshua Mutch, Zhaoyu Liu, Preston Went & Jiun-Haw Chu

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

    Jian Liu

  3. Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratories, Lemont, IL, USA

    Philip J. Ryan & Jong-Woo Kim

  4. School of Physical Sciences, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Philip J. Ryan

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Contributions

P.M., J.S., J.M., Q.J. and Z.L. grew the samples. P.M., Q.J. and J.S. did the experiments. P.R., J.-W.K. and J.L. helped conceive and design the X-ray diffraction measurements at the Advanced Photon Source. P.W. performed the finite-element analysis. P.M. analysed the data. J.-H.C. supervised the project. All authors contributed extensively to the interpretation of the data and the writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jiun-Haw Chu.

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Peer review information Nature Physics thanks Samuel Lederer, Takasada Shibauchi and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–8 and Tables 1–3.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

x–T phase diagram data, zero-strain ρ versus T data, ρ versus T data under various compressive and tensile strains.

Source Data Fig. 2

Real and imaginary parts of the susceptometer coil mutual inductance versus strain, ρ versus strain for various temperatures, orthorhombicity and resistivity versus strain (T = 8 K), T–ε phase diagram data.

Source Data Fig. 3

ρ versus T data for various strains, Tc versus B2g strain, normalized Tc versus B2g strain, α and –2m66 versus doping.

Source Data Fig. 4

Normalized response of superconductivity to strain for various compounds.

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Malinowski, P., Jiang, Q., Sanchez, J.J. et al. Suppression of superconductivity by anisotropic strain near a nematic quantum critical point. Nat. Phys. 16, 1189–1193 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0983-9

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