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Phys. Rev. B 80, 014508 (2009) [10 pages]

Evidence for weak electronic correlations in iron pnictides

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W. L. Yang1, A. P. Sorini2, C-C. Chen2,3, B. Moritz2, W.-S. Lee2, F. Vernay4, P. Olalde-Velasco1,5, J. D. Denlinger1, B. Delley4, J.-H. Chu2,6,7, J. G. Analytis2,6,7, I. R. Fisher2,6,7, Z. A. Ren8, J. Yang8, W. Lu8, Z. X. Zhao8, J. van den Brink2,9, Z. Hussain1, Z.-X. Shen2,3,6,7, and T. P. Devereaux2,7
1Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
2Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA
3Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
4Condensed Matter Theory Group, Paul Scherrer Institut, CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
5Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, UNAM, Mexico, Distrito Federal 04510, Mexico
6Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
7Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
8National Laboratory for Superconductivity, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100080, People’s Republic of China
9Institute Lorentz for Theoretical Physics, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9506, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands

Received 15 May 2009; revised 11 June 2009; published 13 July 2009

See accompanying Physics Viewpoint

Using x-ray absorption (XAS) and resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS), charge dynamics at and near the Fe L edges is investigated in Fe-pnictide materials and contrasted to that measured in other Fe compounds. It is shown that the XAS and RIXS spectra for 122 and 1111 Fe pnictides are each qualitatively similar to Fe metal. Cluster diagonalization, multiplet, and density-functional calculations show that Coulomb correlations are much smaller than in the cuprates, highlighting the role of Fe metallicity and strong covalency in these materials. The best agreement with experiment is obtained using Hubbard parameters U≲2 eV and J≈0.8 eV.

© 2009 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.80.014508
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevB.80.014508
PACS:
74.70.Dd, 78.70.Dm, 71.10.Fd, 71.15.Mb