Fragile Pressure-Induced Magnetism in FeSe Superconductors with a Thickness Reduction

The emergence of high transition temperature (T c) superconductivity in bulk FeSe under pressure is associated with the tuning of nematicity and magnetism. However, sorting out the relative contributions from magnetic and nematic fluctuations to the enhancement of T c remains challenging. Here, we design and conduct a series of high-pressure experiments on FeSe thin flakes. We find that as the thickness decreases the nematic phase boundary on temperature–pressure phase diagrams remains robust while the magnetic order is significantly weakened. A local maximum of T c is observed outside the nematic phase region, not far from the extrapolated nematic end point in all samples. However, the maximum T c value is reduced associated with the weakening of magnetism. No high-T c phase is observed in the thinnest sample. Our results strongly suggest that nematic fluctuations alone can only have a limited effect while magnetic fluctuations are pivotal on the enhancement of T c in FeSe.