Enhancement of superconducting transition temperature by pointlike disorder and anisotropic energy gap in FeSe single crystals

Abstract

A highly anisotropic superconducting gap is found in single crystals of FeSe by studying the London penetration depth, $\Delta \lambda$, measured down to 50 mK in samples before and after 2.5 MeV electron irradiation. The gap minimum increases with introduced point - like disorder, indicating the absence of symmetry - imposed nodes. Surprisingly, the superconducting transition temperature, $T_c$, \textit{increases} by 0.4 K from $T_{c0} \approx$ 8.8 K while the structural transition temperature, $T_s$, \textit{decreases} by 0.9 K from $T_{s0} \approx$91.2 K after electron irradiation. We discuss several explanations for the $T_c$ enhancement, and propose that local strengthening of the pair interaction by irradiation-induced Frenkel defects most likely explains the phenomenon.