Electronic structure, magnetic order and Lifshitz transition in electron doped new structure 12442 type Fe-based superconductors

We investigate in detail the electronic structure of very recently discovered electron doped 12442-type iron based BaTh2Fe4As4(N1-xOx)2 compounds (x = 0.1-0.6), using Density Functional Theory (DFT) based first principles calculations. Unlike in many iron-based superconducting compounds, absence of As-4pZ orbital character, and dominant contributions from Fe-3d orbitals close to the Fermi level are noted. Formation energy calculations indicate x = 0.3 structure is the most stable which is consistent with experimental observation. Incorporating magnetic order at Fe sites in compound x = 0.3, our calculations predict stripe AFM as ground state magnetic structure. Calculated Arsenic height from the Fe square plane (hAs) for striped AFM configuration agrees well with the experiment. An important outcome of this calculation is the prediction of occurrence of Lifshitz transition at the same doping level (x = 0.6) for which the highest critical temperature is reported in literature. Detailed analysis of electronic structure results like estimation of radii of various Fermi pockets, orbital characters of Fermi surfaces lead to prediction of mixed d and s pairing symmetry.

Automated summary

We investigate the electronic structure of electron doped 12442-type iron based BaTh2Fe4As4(N1-xOx)2 compounds (x = 0.1-0.6) in detail using Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations. The absence of As-4pZ orbital character and dominant contributions from Fe-3d orbitals are noted, contrary to many iron-based superconducting compounds. The most stable structure is found to be x = 0.3, consistent with experimental observations. Our calculations predict the ground state magnetic structure to be stripe antiferromagnetic (AFM) when magnetic order is incorporated at Fe sites in compound x = 0.3. The calculated Arsenic height from the Fe square plane (hAs) matches well with experimental results. An important finding is the prediction of a Lifshitz transition at the same doping level (x = 0.6) for which the highest critical temperature is reported in literature. Detailed analysis of the electronic structure, such as estimating the radii of Fermi pockets and determining the orbital characters of Fermi surfaces, leads to the prediction of mixed d and s pairing symmetry.