Role of magnetic dopants in the phase diagram of Sm 1111 pnictides: The case of Mn

The deliberate insertion of magnetic Mn dopants in the Fe sites of the optimally doped SmFeAsO0.88F0.12 iron-based superconductor can modify in a controlled way its electronic properties. The resulting phase diagram was investigated across a wide range of manganese contents (x) by means of muon-spin spectroscopy (?SR), both in zero and in transverse fields, to probe the magnetic and the superconducting order, respectively. The pure superconducting phase (at x<0.03) is replaced by a crossover region at intermediate Mn values (0.03<=x<0.08), where superconductivity coexists with static magnetic order. After completely suppressing superconductivity for x=0.08, a further increase in Mn content reinforces the natural tendency towards antiferromagnetic correlations among the magnetic Mn ions. The sharp drop of Tc and the induced magnetic order in the presence of magnetic disorder/dopants, such as Mn, are both consistent with a recent theoretical model of unconventional superconductors (M. N. Gastiasoro et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 257002 (2016)10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.257002), which includes correlation-enhanced RKKY couplings between the impurity moments.