Evidence of nodal gap structure in the basal plane of the FeSe superconductor

Abstract

Identifying the symmetry of the wave function describing the Cooper pairs is pivotal in understanding the origin of high-temperature superconductivity in iron-based superconductors. Despite nearly a decade of intense investigation, the answer to this question remains elusive. Here we use the muon spin rotation/relaxation (muSR) technique to investigate the underlying symmetry of the pairing state of the FeSe superconductor, the basic building block of all iron-chalcogenide superconductors. Contrary to earlier muSR studies on powders and crystals, we show that while the superconducting gap is most probably anisotropic but nodeless along the crystallographic c-axis, it is nodal in the ab-plane, as indicated by the linear increase of the superfluid density at low temperature. We further show that the superconducting properties of FeSe display a less pronounced anisotropy than expected.