Doping Evolution of the Superconducting Gap Structure in Heavily Hole-Doped Ba1-xKxFe2As2： a Heat Transport Study

We perform systematic thermal conductivity measurements on heavily hole-doped Ba1-xKxFe2As2 single crystals with 0.747 ≤ x ≤ 0.974. At x=0.747, the K0/T is negligible, indicating a nodeless superconducting gap. A small residual linear term K0/T （=0.035 m W.K-2 cm-1） appears at xz0.826, and it increases slowly up to x=0.974, followed by a substantial increase of more than 20 times to of K0/T clearly shows that the nodal gap appears near x surface topology. The small values of K0/T from x=0.826 the pure KFe2As2 （x=1.0）. This doping dependence = 0.8, possibly associated with the change of Fermi to 0.974 are consistent with the Y-shaped nodal s- wave gap recently revealed by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments at x=0.9. Furthermore, the substantial increase of K0/T from x=0.974 to 1.0 is inconsistent with a symmetry-imposed d-wave gap in KFe2 As2, and a possible nodal gap structure in KFe2As2 is discussed.