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Evidence for nodal superconductivity in LaFePO

Superconductivity 2009-06-25 v1 Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

In several iron-arsenide superconductors there is strong evidence for a fully gapped superconducting state consistent with either a conventional s-wave symmetry or an unusual s±s_\pm state where there the gap changes sign between the electron and hole Fermi surface sheets. Here we report measurements of the penetration depth λ(T)\lambda(T) in very clean samples of the related iron-phosphide superconductor, LaFePO, at temperatures down to \sim 100 mK. We find that λ(T)\lambda(T) varies almost perfectly linearly with TT strongly suggesting the presence of gap nodes in this compound. Taken together with other data, this suggests the gap function may not be generic to all pnictide superconductors.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.0812.3858,
  title  = {Evidence for nodal superconductivity in LaFePO},
  author = {J. D. Fletcher and A. Serafin and L. Malone and J. Analytis and J-H Chu and A. S. Erickson and I. R. Fisher and A. Carrington},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0812.3858},
  year   = {2009}
}