Abstract: We present electrical transport measurements in the superconducting dissipative state of crystalline iron deficient Fe 1−y Se samples. These iron deficient samples were synthesized using NaCl/KCl flux and are characterized by the presence of correlated defects. The dissipation in electrical transport experiments, when the driving current is perpendicular or parallel to the crystal planes, depends strongly on the direction of the applied magnetic field , ( H=12 T), within the sample plane. There is a dissipation modulation each 60∘ due to the presence of the correlated defects. We correlate these angular dependent features with the variation of the critical currents ( Jc ) changing the direction of H confined in the crystals planes. Jc was measured from magnetization loops at fixed temperatures and angles of H always within the basal planes.

Abstract: We report on measurements of critical current densities Jc and flux creep rates S of freestanding Ca(Fe1−xCox)2As2 (x ≈ 0.033) single crystals with Tc ≈ 15.7 K by performing magnetization measurements. The magnetic field dependences of Jc at low temperature display features related to strong pinning. In addition, we find that the system displays small flux creep rates. The characteristic glassy exponent, μ, and the pinning energy, U0, display exceptional high values for pristine crystals. We find that for magnetic fields between 0.3 T and 1 T, μ decreases from ≈ 2.8 to ≈ 2 and U0 remains ≈ 300 K. Analysis of the pinning force indicates that the mechanism is similar to the observed in polycrystalline systems in which grain boundaries and random disorder produce the vortex pinning. Considering the large U0 observed in the single crystal, we attempt to improve the pinning by adding random point disorder by 3 MeV proton irradiation with a fluence of 2 × 1016 proton/cm2. The results show that, unlike other iron-based superconductors, the superconducting fraction is sharply reduced by irradiation. This fact indicates that the superconductivity in the system is extremely fragile to an increment in the disorder. The superconducting volume fraction in the irradiated crystal systematically recovers after removal disorder by thermal annealing, which evidences as to the observation of critical state in curves of magnetization versus magnetic field. No features related to a reentrant antiferromagnetic transition are observed for the irradiated sample.

Abstract: Recent studies show that the non-Fermi liquid (NFL) behavior of MnSi and Fe spans over an unexpectedly broad pressure range, between the critical pressure p and around 2p. In order to determine the extension of their NFL regions, we analyze the evolution of the resistivity ρ(T)˜A(p)T at higher pressures. We find that in MnSi the n=32 exponent holds below 4.8GPa≈3p, but it increases above that pressure. At 7.2 GPa we observe the low-temperature Fermi liquid exponent n=2 whereas for T>1.5K, n=53. Our measurements in Fe show that the NFL behavior ρ˜T extends at least up to 30.5 GPa, above the entire superconducting (SC) region. In the studied pressure range, the onset of the SC transition reduces by a factor 10 down to Tconset(30.5GPa)=0.23K, while the A—coefficient diminishes monotonically by around 50%.