Heavy-anion solvation of polarity fluctuations in pnictides

¹  Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia - Vancouver, BC V6T-1Z1, Canada
²  Institute Lorentz for Theoretical Physics, Leiden University - P.O. Box 9506, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands, EU
³  Institute for Molecules and Materials, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen - P.O. Box 9010, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands, EU

Corresponding author: elfimov@phas.ubc.ca

Received: 16 January 2009
Accepted: 15 March 2009

Abstract

Once again the world of condensed matter has been surprised by the discovery of yet another class of high-temperature superconductors. The first reactions would of course be that these iron-pnictide– and iron-chalcogenide–based materials must in some way be related to the copper-oxide–based superconductors for which a large number of theories exist although a general consensus regarding the correct theory has not yet been reached. Here, we point out that the basic physical paradigm of the new iron-based superconductors is entirely different from the cuprates. Their fundamental properties, structural and electronic, are dominated by the exceptionally large pnictide electronic polarizabilities.