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Structural and transport properties in the normal and superconducting states are investigated in a Ca0.8La0.2FeAs2 single crystal with Tc = 27 K, belonging to the newly discovered 112 family of iron based superconductors. The transport critical current density Jc for both field directions measured in a focused ion beam patterned microbridge reveals a weakly field dependent and low anisotropic behaviour with a low temperature value as high as Jc(B = 0) ∼ 105 A/cm2. This demonstrates not only bulk superconductivity but also the potential of 112 superconductors towards applications. Interestingly, this superconducting compound undergoes a structural transition below 100 K which is evidenced by temperature-dependent X-ray diffraction measurements. Data analysis of Hall resistance and magnetoresistivity indicate that magnetotransport properties are largely dominated by an electron band, with a change of regime observed in correspondence of the onset of a structural transition. In the low temperature regime, the contribution of a hole band to transport is suggested, possibly playing a role in determining the superconducting state.

The complex magnetic ordering of parent compounds of most unconventional superconductors is crucial for the understanding of high-temperature superconductivity (SC). Within this framework, we have performed temperature-dependent magnetotransport experiments on a single crystal of SmFeAsO, a parent compound of iron pnictide superconductors. We observe multiple features in the measured transport properties at temperatures below the antiferromagnetic (AFM) ordering of Sm, $T < {T_{{\text{NSm}}}}$ , which evolve with in-plane magnetic field, suggesting a rich variety of metamagnetic transitions never before observed in this compound. Considering that transport mainly involves Fe d orbitals at the Fermi level, these findings suggest that the features originate from magnetic transitions of the Fe moments sublattice, which in turn may be induced by magnetic transitions of the Sm moments sublattice via the interaction between Fe and Sm moments. We outline a possible scenario in which the Fe moments, strongly affected by the Sm ordering below T _NSm , reorder to an in-plane canted AFM structure, which is washed out by the application of an in-plane magnetic field up to 9 T. Our work shows that transport properties are a valuable tool for investigating magnetic ordering in iron pnictide parent compounds, where the interplay of magnetism and SC is believed to be the origin of high-temperature SC.