Physical Review X (Sep 2014)
Extraordinary Doping Effects on Quasiparticle Scattering and Bandwidth in Iron-Based Superconductors
Abstract
The diversities in crystal structures and ways of doping result in extremely diversified phase diagrams for iron-based superconductors. With angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we have systematically studied the effects of chemical substitution on the electronic structure of various series of iron-based superconductors. Beyond the Fermi-surface alteration that has been reported most often in the past, we found two more extraordinary effects of doping: (1) the site and band dependencies of quasiparticle scattering and, more importantly, (2) the ubiquitous and significant change of electronic correlation by both isovalent and heterovalent dopants in the iron-anion layer. Moreover, we found that the electronic correlation could be suppressed by applying either the chemical pressure or doping electrons but not by doping holes. Together with other findings provided here, these results complete the microscopic picture of the electronic effects of dopants, which facilitates a unified understanding of the diversified phase diagrams and resolutions to many open issues of various iron-based superconductors.