Interplay between magnetism and superconductivity in iron-chalcogenide superconductors: crystal growth and characterizations

In this review, we present a summary of results on single crystal growth of two types of iron-chalcogenide superconductors, Fe 1+ y Te 1− x Se x (11), and A x Fe 2− y Se 2 ( A = K, Rb, Cs, Tl, Tl/K, Tl/Rb), using Bridgman, zone-melting, vapor self-transport and flux techniques. The superconducting and magnetic properties (the latter gained mainly from neutron scattering measurements) of these materials are reviewed to demonstrate the connection between magnetism and superconductivity. It will be shown that for the 11 system, while static magnetic order around the reciprocal lattice position (0.5, 0) competes with superconductivity, spin excitations centered around (0.5, 0.5) are closely coupled to the materials' superconductivity; this is made evident by the strong correlation between the spectral weight around (0.5, 0.5) and the superconducting volume fraction. The observation of a spin resonance below the superconducting temperature, T c , and the magnetic-field dependence of the resonance emphasize the close interplay between spin excitations and superconductivity, similar to cuprate superconductors. In A x Fe 2− y Se 2 , superconductivity with T c ∼ 30 K borders an antiferromagnetic insulating phase; this is closer to the behavior observed in the cuprates but differs from that in other iron-based superconductors.