Soft striped magnetic fluctuations competing with superconductivity in   Fe_{1+x}Te
  Neutron spectroscopy is used to investigate the magnetic fluctuations in Fe_{1+x}Te - a parent compound of chalcogenide superconductors. Incommensurate "stripe-like" excitations soften with increased interstitial iron concentration. The energy crossover from incommensurate to stripy fluctuations defines an apparent hour-glass dispersion. Application of sum rules of neutron scattering find that the integrated intensity is inconsistent with an S=1 Fe^{2+} ground state and significantly less than S=2 predicted from weak crystal field arguments pointing towards the Fe^{2+} being in a superposition of orbital states. The results suggest that a highly anisotropic order competes with superconductivity in chalcogenide systems. 
C. Stock, E. E. Rodriguez, O. Sobolev, J. A. Rodriguez-Rivera, R. A.   Ewings, J. W. Taylor, A. D. Christianson, and M. A. Green
cond-mat.str-el cond-mat.supr-con