Effects of 4d transition metal Pd doping on the magnetic and superconducting properties of 112-type iron pnictide EuFeAs2

The recently discovered 112-type EuFeAs2 compound that shows complex Eu-spin magnetism provides a new platform to study the interplay between superconductivity (SC) and magnetism in iron pnictide superconductors. In this paper, by substituting Fe with the 4d transition metal Pd, we have successfully synthesized a series of EuFe1-xPdxAs2 (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.08) samples and studied the doping effect on SC and magnetism by means of electrical transport and magnetization measurements. The systematic evolution of the lattice parameters indicates that the Pd atoms have been successfully substituted into the Fe sites. With Pd doping, the Fe-related spin density wave (SDW) transition at TFe m in the parent phase is rapidly suppressed, and SC simultaneously emerges, exhibiting a domelike shape with a maximum onset transition temperature Tonset c of around 18.5 K at x = 0.04. On the other hand, the Eu-related AFM order at TEu m is suppressed very slowly and persists up to x = 0.08, covering the whole SC dome region. Also, the reentrant spin-glass and spin-reorientation transitions below TEu m remain unchanged with Pd doping. All these results indicate that the Eu spins have little effect on SC in EuFe1-xPdxAs2. Finally, based on the resistivity and magnetization data, the T-x phase diagram of EuFe1-xPdxAs2 is constructed and compared with those of 3d transition metals Co/Ni and La doped ones.

Field-induced vortex-like textures as a probe of the critical line in reentrant spin glasses

We study the evolution of the low-temperature field-induced magnetic defects observed under an applied magnetic field in a series of frustrated amorphous ferromagnets (Fe$$_{1-x}$$ 1 - x Mn$$_{x}$$ x )$$_{75}$$ 75 P$$_{16}$$ 16 B$$_{3}$$ 3 Al$$_{3}$$ 3 (“a-Fe$$_{1-x}$$ 1 - x Mn$$_{x}$$ x ”). Combining small-angle neutron scattering and Monte Carlo simulations, we show that the morphology of these defects resemble that of quasi-bidimensional spin vortices. They are observed in the so-called “reentrant” spin-glass (RSG) phase, up to the critical concentration $$x_{\mathrm{C}} \approx 0.36$$ x C ≈ 0.36 which separates the RSG and “true” spin glass (SG) within the low temperature part of the magnetic phase diagram of a-Fe1−xMnx. These textures systematically decrease in size with increasing magnetic field or decreasing the average exchange interaction, and they finally disappear in the SG sample ($$x = 0.41$$ x = 0.41 ), being replaced by field-induced correlations over finite length scales. We argue that the study of these nanoscopic defects could be used to probe the critical line between the RSG and SG phases.