Universal behavior of the transition temperature in irradiated iron pnictide superconductors

Highlights: • Compare radiation damage effects on Tc of conventional superconductors, high-Tc cuprates and iron pnictides. • Analyze data using displacement damage dose methodology. • Tc in irradiated pnictides behaves identically to cuprates despite differences in Tc. • Conclude: Common element is defect-induced scattering of carriers out of 2-D planes. - Abstract: We show that, as in the cuprate superconductors, the superconducting transition temperature in irradiated iron pnictides decreases linearly with increasing induced defect concentration, largely independent of the initial onset Tc or the incident particle's mass or energy. We attribute this to depairing caused by scattering of Cooper pairs out of the quasi two-dimensional FeAs planes