We have synthesized polycrystalline samples of Fe1.11(Te1-xSx) and single crystals of Fe1+y(Te0.88S0.12),and characterized their properties.Our results show that the solid solution of S in the Fe1.11Te tetragonal lattice is limited,~10%.We observed superconductivity at ~8 K in both polycrystalline samples and single crystals.Magnetization measurements reveal that the volume fraction is small for this superconducting phase in both polycrystalline samples as-synthesized and single crystals as-grown.It is found that annealing in air enhances the superconducting fraction;the maximum fraction is almost 100% in the single crystals annealed in air at 300°C.We discuss the effect of annealing on superconductivity and transport properties at the normal state in the Fe1+y(Te1-xSx) system in terms of decrease of the excess Fe.
Iron-chalcogenide compounds with FeSe（Te, S） layers did not attract much attention until the discovery of high-Tc superconductivity （SC） in the iron-pnictide compounds at the begining of 2008. Compared with FeAs-based superconductors, iron-chalcogenide superconductors have aroused enormous enthusiasm to study the relationship between SC and magnetisms with several distinct features, such as different antiferromagnetic ground states with relatively large moments in the parents, indicating possibly different superconducting mechanisms, the existence of the excess Fe atoms or Fe vacancies in the crystal lattice. Another reason is that the large single crystals are easily grown for the iron-chalcogenide compounds. This review will focus on our exploration for the iron-chalcogenide superconductors and discussion on several issues, including the crystal structure, magnetic properties, superconductivity, and phase separation. Some of them reach a consensus but some important questions still remain to be answered.
