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American Physical Society, Physical Review Letters, 1(109), 2012

DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.109.017003

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Nanoscale Layering of Antiferromagnetic and Superconducting Phases inRb2Fe4Se5Single Crystals

This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

We studied phase separation in the single-crystalline antiferromagnetic superconductor Rb_{2}Fe_{4}Se_{5} (RFS) using a combination of scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy and low-energy muon spin rotation (LE-μSR). 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  μm. By means of LE-μSR 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.