Measurement of Coherent Polarons in the Strongly Coupled Antiferromagnetically Ordered Iron-Chalcogenide Fe1.02Te using Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy

The nature of metallicity and the level of electronic correlations in the antiferromagnetically ordered parent compounds are two important open issues for the iron-based superconductivity. We perform a temperature-dependent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy study of Fe1.02Te, the parent compound for iron chalcogenide superconductors. Deep in the antiferromagnetic state, the spectra exhibit a peak-dip-hump line shape associated with two clearly separate branches of dispersion, characteristics of polarons seen in manganites and lightly doped cuprates. As temperature increases towards the Neel temperature (T-N), we observe a decreasing renormalization of the peak dispersion and a counterintuitive sharpening of the hump linewidth, suggestive of an intimate connection between the weakening electron-phonon (e-ph) coupling and antiferromagnetism. Our finding points to the highly correlated nature of the Fe1.02Te ground state featured by strong interactions among the charge, spin, and lattice and a good metallicity plausibly contributed by the coherent polaron motion. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.037003