Energy scale of nematic ordering in the parent iron-based superconductor BaFe2As2

Abstract

Nematicity plays an important role in the physics of iron-based superconductors (IBS). Its microscopic origin and in particular its importance for the mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity itself are highly debated. A crucial knowledge in this regard is the degree to which the nematic order influences the electronic structure of these materials. Earlier angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) studies found that the effect is dramatic in three families of IBS including 11, 111 and 122 compounds: energy splitting reaches 70 meV and Fermi surface becomes noticeably distorted. More recent experiments, however, reported significantly lower energy scale in 11 and 111 families, thus questioning the degree and universality of the impact of nematicity on the electronic structure of IBS. Here we revisit the electronic structure of undoped parent BaFe2As2 (122 family). Our systematic ARPES study including the detailed temperature and photon energy dependencies points to the significantly smaller energy scale also in this family of materials, thus establishing the universal scale of this phenomenon in IBS. Our results form a necessary quantitative basis for theories of high-temperature superconductivity focused on the nematicity.