The recent discovery of superconductivity at high pressure in the two-leg ladder compounds BaFe2X3 (X=S, Se) started the novel field of quasi-one-dimensional iron-based superconductors. In this publication, we use Density Functional Theory (DFT) to predict that the previously barely explored ladder compound RbFe2Te3 should be magnetic with a CX-type arrangement involving ferromagnetic rungs and antiferromagnetic legs, at the realistic density of n=5.5 electrons per iron. The magnetic state similarity with BaFe2S3 suggests that RbFe2Te3 could also become superconducting under pressure. Moreover, at n=6.0 our DFT phase diagrams (with and without lattice tetramerization) reveal that the stable magnetic states could be either a 2×2 magnetic Block-type, as for X=Se, or a previously never observed before CY-type state, with ferromagnetic legs and antiferromagnetic rungs. In the Te-based studies, electrons are more localized than in S, implying that the degree of electronic correlation is enhanced for the Te case.
@article{arxiv.1908.11765,
title = {Magnetic states of iron-based two-leg ladder tellurides},
author = {Yang Zhang and Ling-Fang Lin and Adriana Moreo and Shuai Dong and Elbio Dagotto},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1908.11765},
year = {2019}
}