2018/11/30 by Jianwei Huang, Lin Zhao, Cong Li +20
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Fermi gas #Fermi level #Fermi liquid theory #Fermi surface #Iron-based superconductors research #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Pseudogap #Quantum oscillations #Quasiparticle #Superconductivity #Topological Materials and Phenomena #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.str-el #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.scib.2018.11.017
published as Science Bulletin 64, 11-19 (2019) · 22 pages, 4 figures
openalex publication_date 2018/11/30 · openalex created_date 2018/12/11 · arxiv created 2019/01/17 · arxiv updated 2019/01/18 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
In unconventional superconductors, it is generally believed that understanding the physical properties of the normal state is a pre-requisite for understanding the superconductivity mechanism. In conventional superconductors like niobium or lead, the normal state is a Fermi liquid with a well-defined Fermi surface and well-defined quasipartcles along the Fermi surface. Superconductivity is realized in this case by the Fermi surface instability in the superconducting state and the formation and condensation of the electron pairs (Cooper pairing). The high temperature cuprate superconductors, on the other hand, represent another extreme case that superconductivity can be realized in the underdoped region where there is neither well-defined Fermi surface due to the pseudogap formation nor quasiparticles near the antinodal regions in the normal state. Here we report a novel scenario that superconductivity is realized in a system with well-defined Fermi surface but without quasiparticles along the Fermi surface in the normal state. High resolution laser-based angle-resolved photoemission measurements have been performed on an optimally-doped iron-based superconductor (Ba0.6K0.4)Fe2As2. We find that, while sharp superconducting coherence peaks emerge in the superconducting state on the hole-like Fermi surface sheets, no quasiparticle peak is present in the normal state. Its electronic behaviours deviate strongly from a Fermi liquid system. The superconducting gap of such a system exhibits an unusual temperature dependence that it is nearly a constant in the superconducting state and abruptly closes at Tc. These observations have provided a new platform to study unconventional superconductivity in a non-Fermi liquid system.