Effect of Fermi surface nesting on resonant spin excitations in Ba(1-x)K(x)Fe2As2

Phys Rev Lett. 2011 Oct 21;107(17):177003. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.177003. Epub 2011 Oct 18.

Abstract

We report inelastic neutron scattering measurements of the resonant spin excitations in Ba(1-x)K(x)Fe(2)As(2) over a broad range of electron band filling. The fall in the superconducting transition temperature with hole doping coincides with the magnetic excitations splitting into two incommensurate peaks because of the growing mismatch in the hole and electron Fermi surface volumes, as confirmed by a tight-binding model with s(±)-symmetry pairing. The reduction in Fermi surface nesting is accompanied by a collapse of the resonance binding energy and its spectral weight, caused by the weakening of electron-electron correlations.