Phonon spectrum of SrFe$_{2}$As$_{2}$ determined using multizone phonon refinement

ORAL

Abstract

The ferropnictide superconductors exhibit a sensitive interplay between the lattice and magnetic degrees of freedom, including a number of phonon modes are much softer than predicted by nonmagnetic calculations using density functional theory (DFT). However, it is not known what effect, if any, the long-range magnetic order has on phonon frequencies above 23~meV, where several phonon branches are very closely spaced in energy and it is challenging to isolate them from each other. We measured these phonons using inelastic time-of-flight neutron scattering in $\approx$ 40~Brillouin zones, and developed a technique to determine their frequencies. We find this method capable of determining phonon energies to better than 0.1~meV accuracy, and that the DFT calculations using the experimental structure yield qualitatively correct energies and eigenvectors. We do not find any effect of the magnetic transition on these phonons.

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Authors

  • D. Parshall

    • Univ of Colorado, Boulder
  • R. Heid

    • Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
  • J.L. Niedziela

    • Oak Ridge National Laboratory
    • Instrument and Source Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  • Thomas Wolf

    • Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
    • Karlsruher Institut f\"ur Technologie, IFP, 76021 Karlsruhe, Germany
  • M.B. Stone

    • Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  • D.L. Abernathy

    • Oak Ridge National Laboratory
    • Oak Ridge National Lab
    • Quantum Condensed Matter Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  • Dmitry Reznik

    • Univ of Colorado, Boulder
    • Department of Physics, University of Colorado-Boulder