Here we present a combined study of the slightly underdoped novel pnictide superconductor Ba1-xKxFe2As2 by means of x-ray powder diffraction, neutron scattering, muon-spin rotation (microSR), and magnetic force microscopy (MFM). Static antiferromagnetic order sets in below T{m} approximately 70 K as inferred from the neutron scattering and zero-field-microSR data. Transverse-field microSR below Tc shows a coexistence of magnetically ordered and nonmagnetic states, which is also confirmed by MFM imaging. We explain such coexistence by electronic phase separation into antiferromagnetic and superconducting- or normal-state regions on a lateral scale of several tens of nanometers. Our findings indicate that such mesoscopic phase separation can be considered an intrinsic property of some iron pnictide superconductors.

Electronic devices that use the spin degree of freedom hold unique prospects for future technology. The performance of these 'spintronic' devices relies heavily on the efficient transfer of spin polarization across different layers and interfaces. This complex transfer process depends on individual material properties and also, most importantly, on the structural and electronic properties of the interfaces between the different materials and defects that are common to real devices. Knowledge of these factors is especially important for the relatively new field of organic spintronics, where there is a severe lack of suitable experimental techniques that can yield depth-resolved information about the spin polarization of charge carriers within buried layers of real devices. Here, we present a new depth-resolved technique for measuring the spin polarization of current-injected electrons in an organic spin valve and find the temperature dependence of the measured spin diffusion length is correlated with the device magnetoresistance.R ecently great efforts have been undertaken to use the spin degree of freedom in electronic devices. These activities are fuelled by the potential prospects of spin-electronic (or 'spintronic') devices for example in terms of increased processing speed and integration, non-volatility, reduced power consumption, multifunctionality and their suitability for quantum computing 1 . The most common method for using the spin in devices is based on the alignment of the electron spin ('up' or 'down') relative to either a reference magnetic field or the magnetization orientation of a ferromagnetic layer. Device operation normally proceeds with measuring a quantity such as the electrical current that depends on how the degree of spin alignment is transferred across the device. The so-called 'spin valve' is a prominent example of such a spin-enabled device that has already revolutionized hard-drive read heads and magnetic memory 1 . The efficient transfer of spin polarization in real device structures remains one of the most difficult challenges in spintronics, because it is dependent on more than just the properties of the individual materials that comprise the device.Recently 2,3 , the use of organic materials in spintronics has become of significant interest, primarily owing to their ease and small cost of processing and electronic and structural flexibility. Furthermore, the extremely long spin coherence times found in organic materials offer considerable advantages over other materials 3 . This favourable property is related to two factors, first the weak spin-orbit coupling of light elements such as carbon and second to the small nuclear hyperfine interaction 4,5 . The latter arises because the electron transport in π-conjugated molecules is normally confined to molecular states, delocalized to the carbon rings, the predominant isotope of which, 12 C, has zero nuclear spin 4 .A common way to measure spin diffusion is based on time-resolved optical techniques, where spin-polarized charge carrie...

Spintronics has shown a remarkable and rapid development, for example from the initial discovery of giant magnetoresistance in spin valves 1 to their ubiquity in hard-disk read heads in a relatively short time. However, the ability to fully harness electron spin as another degree of freedom in semiconductor devices has been slower to take off. One future avenue that may expand the spintronic technology base is to take advantage of the flexibility intrinsic to organic semiconductors (OSCs), where it is possible to engineer and control their electronic properties and tailor them to obtain new device concepts 2 . Here we show that we can control the spin polarization of extracted charge carriers from an OSC by the inclusion of a thin interfacial layer of polar material. The electric dipole moment brought about by this layer shifts the OSC highest occupied molecular orbital with respect to the Fermi energy of the ferromagnetic contact. This approach allows us full control of the spin band appropriate for charge-carrier extraction, opening up new spintronic device concepts for future exploitation.The development and understanding of new hybrid organic/inorganic interfaces will enable considerable progress in organic spintronics for technological purposes, including processing elements, sensors, memories and conceptually different future applications. In addition to the 'standard' spintronic applications, newly developed interfaces could bring spintronic effects to the field of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), as well as in the fast progressing field of organic field-effect transistors. For example, the injection of carriers with a controlled spin state could enable the amplification of either singlet or triplet exciton states 2 leading to a significant increase in the efficiency of the electroluminescence in OLEDs. Although these considerations are conceptually straightforward, no efficiency amplification has yet been reported in the literature, despite several attempts 3 . The failure of those approaches was caused by the simple reason that light emission can be detected starting from an applied voltage of a few volts, whereas state-of-the-art spin injection in organic materials persists to a maximum of around 1 V (refs 4-6). As yet, this is unexplained. Further complications arise from the fact that various reports on working devices show a wide spread of performances for apparently similar structures, highlighting the issue of reproducibility [7][8][9] . The poor reproducibility is mainly due to the unknown interplay between processing and spin transfer performance and there is little deterministic control of the interface properties. However, it has recently been demonstrated that the insertion of a barrier

We report muon spin rotation (μSR) and infrared spectroscopy experiments on underdoped BaFe1.89Co0.11As2 which show that bulk magnetism and superconductivity (SC) coexist and compete on the nanometer length scale. Our combined data reveal a bulk magnetic order, likely due to an incommensurate spin density wave (SDW), which develops below T(mag)≈32  K and becomes reduced in magnitude (but not in volume) below Tc=21.7  K. A slowly fluctuating precursor of the SDW seems to develop already below the structural transition at T(s)≈50  K. The bulk nature of SC is established by the μSR data which show a bulk SC vortex lattice and the IR data which reveal that the majority of low-energy states is gapped and participates in the condensate at T≪T(c).

Publication date: 2012 Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link back to DTU Orbit Citation (APA): Bernhard, C., Wang, C. N., Nuccio, L., Schulz, L., Zaharko, O., Larsen, J., ... Niedermayer, C. (2012). Muon spin rotation study of magnetism and superconductivity in Using muon spin rotation (μSR) we investigated the magnetic and superconducting properties of a series of Ba(Fe 1−x Co x ) 2 As 2 single crystals with 0 x 0.15. Our study details how the antiferromagnetic order is suppressed upon Co substitution and how it coexists with superconductivity. In the nonsuperconducting samples at 0 < x < 0.04 the antiferromagnetic order parameter is only moderately suppressed. With the onset of superconductivity this suppression becomes faster and it is most rapid between x = 0.045 and 0.05. As was previously demonstrated by μSR at x = 0.055 [P. Marsik et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 57001 (2010)], the strongly weakened antiferromagnetic order is still a bulk phenomenon that competes with superconductivity. The comparison with neutron diffraction data suggests that the antiferromagnetic order remains commensurate whereas the amplitude exhibits a spatial variation that is likely caused by the randomly distributed Co atoms. A different kind of magnetic order that was also previously identified [C. Bernhard et al., New J. Phys. 11, 055050 (2009)] occurs at 0.055 < x < 0.075 where T c approaches the maximum value. The magnetic order develops here only in parts of the sample volume and it seems to cooperate with superconductivity since its onset temperature coincides with T c . Even in the strongly overdoped regime at x = 0.11, where the static magnetic order has disappeared, we find that the low-energy spin fluctuations are anomalously enhanced below T c . These findings point toward a drastic change in the relationship between the magnetic and superconducting orders from a competitive one in the strongly underdoped regime to a constructive one in near-optimally and overdoped samples.