Magnetism in Fe-based superconductors

In this review, we present a summary of experimental studies of magnetism in Fe-based superconductors. The doping dependent phase diagram shows strong similarities to the generic phase diagram of the cuprates. Parent compounds exhibit magnetic order together with a structural phase transition, both of which are progressively suppressed with doping, allowing superconductivity to emerge. The stripe-like spin arrangement of Fe moments in the magnetically ordered state shows identical in-plane structure for the RFeAsO (R = rare earth) and AFe2As2 (A = Sr, Ca, Ba, Eu and K) parent compounds, notably different than the spin configuration of the cuprates. Interestingly, Fe1+yTe orders with a different spin order despite having very similar Fermi surface topology. Studies of the spin dynamics of the parent compounds show that the interactions are best characterized as anisotropic three-dimensional interactions. Despite the room temperature tetragonal structure, analysis of the low temperature spin waves under the assumption of a Heisenberg Hamiltonian indicates strong in-plane anisotropy with a significant next-nearest-neighbor interaction. For the superconducting state, a resonance, localized in both wavevector and energy, is observed in the spin excitation spectrum as for the cuprates. This resonance is observed at a wavevector compatible with a Fermi surface nesting instability independent of the magnetic ordering of the relevant parent compound. The resonance energy (Er) scales with the superconducting transition temperature (TC) as Er ∼ 4.9kBTC, which is consistent with the canonical value of ∼ 5kBTC observed for the cuprates. Moreover, the relationship between the resonance energy and the superconducting gap, Δ, is similar to that observed for many unconventional superconductors (Er/2Δ ∼ 0.64). (topical review)