Abstract
We report the effects of heavy-ion irradiation on FeSe single crystals by irradiating uranium up to a dose-equivalent matching field of T. Almost continuous columnar defects along the axis with a diameter of nm are confirmed by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. is found to be suppressed by introducing columnar defects at a rate of K/T, which is much larger than those observed in iron pnictides. This unexpected large suppression of in FeSe is discussed in relation to the large diameter of the columnar defects as well as its unique band structure with a remarkably small Fermi energy. The critical current density is first dramatically enhanced with irradiation reaching a value over times larger than that of the pristine sample) at 2 K (self-field) with T, then gradually suppressed with increasing . The pinning associated with charge-carrier mean-free-path fluctuations and the pinning associated with spatial fluctuations of the transition temperature are found to coexist in the pristine FeSe, while the irradiation increases the contribution from pinning and makes it dominant over T.
- Received 24 September 2016
- Revised 17 January 2017
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.95.104514
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