215 research outputs found
Electronic Liquid Crystal Phases of a Doped Mott Insulator
The character of the ground state of an antiferromagnetic insulator is
fundamentally altered upon addition of even a small amount of charge. The added
charges agglomerate along domain walls at which the spin correlations, which
may or may not remain long-ranged, suffer a phase shift. In two
dimensions, these domain walls are ``stripes'' which are either insulating, or
conducting, i.e. metallic rivers with their own low energy degrees of freedom.
However, quasi one-dimensional metals typically undergo a transition to an
insulating ordered charge density wave (CDW) state at low temperatures. Here it
is shown that such a transition is eliminated if the zero-point energy of
transverse stripe fluctuations is sufficiently large in comparison to the CDW
coupling between stripes. As a consequence, there exist novel,
liquid-crystalline low-temperature phases -- an electron smectic, with
crystalline order in one direction, but liquid-like correlations in the other,
and an electron nematic with orientational order but no long-range positional
order. These phases, which constitute new states of matter, can be either high
temperature supeconductors or two-dimensional anisotropic ``metallic''
non-Fermi liquids. Evidence for the new phases may already have been obtained
by neutron scattering experiments in the cuprate superconductor,
La_{1.6-x}Nd_{0.4}Sr_xCuO_{4}.Comment: 5 pages in RevTex with two figures in ep
Hour-glass magnetic spectrum in an insulating, hole-doped antiferromagnet
Superconductivity in layered copper-oxide compounds emerges when charge
carriers are added to antiferromagnetically-ordered CuO2 layers. The carriers
destroy the antiferromagnetic order, but strong spin fluctuations persist
throughout the superconducting phase and are intimately linked to
super-conductivity. Neutron scattering measurements of spin fluctuations in
hole-doped copper oxides have revealed an unusual `hour-glass' feature in the
momentum-resolved magnetic spectrum, present in a wide range of superconducting
and non-superconducting materials. There is no widely-accepted explanation for
this feature. One possibility is that it derives from a pattern of alternating
spin and charge stripes, an idea supported by measurements on stripe-ordered
La1.875Ba0.125CuO4. However, many copper oxides without stripe order also
exhibit an hour-glass spectrum$. Here we report the observation of an
hour-glass magnetic spectrum in a hole-doped antiferromagnet from outside the
family of superconducting copper oxides. Our system has stripe correlations and
is an insulator, which means its magnetic dynamics can conclusively be ascribed
to stripes. The results provide compelling evidence that the hour-glass
spectrum in the copper-oxide superconductors arises from fluctuating stripes.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Natur
Direct evidence for charge stripes in a layered cobalt oxide
Recent experiments indicate that static stripe-like charge order is generic to the hole-doped copper oxide superconductors and competes with superconductivity. Here we show that a similar type of charge order is present in La5/3 Sr1/3 CoO4 , an insulating analogue of the copper oxide superconductors containing cobalt in place of copper. The stripe phase we have detected is accompanied by short-range, quasi-one-dimensional, antiferromagnetic order, and provides a natural explanation for the distinctive hour- glass shape of the magnetic spectrum previously observed in neutron scattering mea- surements of La2âxSrx CoO4 and many hole-doped copper oxide superconductors. The results establish a solid empirical basis for theories of the hourglass spectrum built on short-range, quasi-static, stripe correlations
Magnetic Order versus superconductivity in the Iron-based layered La(O1-xFx)FeAs systems
In high-transition temperature (high-Tc) copper oxides, it is generally
believed that antiferromagnetism plays a fundamental role in the
superconducting mechanism because superconductivity occurs when mobile
electrons or holes are doped into the antiferromagnetic parent compounds. The
recent discovery of superconductivity in the rare-earth (R) iron-based oxide
systems [RO1-xFxFeAs] has generated enormous interest because these materials
are the first noncopper oxide superconductors with Tc exceeding 50 K. The
parent (nonsuperconducting) LaOFeAs material is metallic but shows anomalies
near 150 K in both resistivity and dc magnetic susceptibility. While optical
conductivity and theoretical calculations suggest that LaOFeAs exhibits a
spin-density-wave (SDW) instability that is suppressed with doping electrons to
form superconductivity, there has been no direct evidence of the SDW order.
Here we use neutron scattering to demonstrate that LaOFeAs undergoes an abrupt
structural distortion below ~150 K, changing the symmetry from tetragonal
(space group P4/nmm) to monoclinic (space group P112/n) at low temperatures,
and then followed with the development of long range SDW-type antiferromagnetic
order at ~134 K with a small moment but simple magnetic structure. Doping the
system with flourine suppresses both the magnetic order and structural
distortion in favor of superconductivity. Therefore, much like high-Tc copper
oxides, the superconducting regime in these Fe-based materials occurs in close
proximity to a long-range ordered antiferromagnetic ground state. Since the
discovery of longComment: 15 pages, 4 figures, and 3 table
Charge superconductivity from pair density wave order in certain high temperature superconductors
A number of spectacular experimental anomalies\cite{li-2007,fujita-2005} have
recently been discovered in certain cuprates, notably {\LBCO} and {\LNSCO},
which exhibit unidirectional spin and charge order (known as ``stripe order'').
We have recently proposed to interpret these observations as evidence for a
novel ``striped superconducting'' state, in which the superconducting order
parameter is modulated in space, such that its average is precisely zero. Here,
we show that thermal melting of the striped superconducting state can lead to a
number of unusual phases, of which the most novel is a charge
superconducting state, with a corresponding fractional flux quantum .
These are never-before observed states of matter, and ones, moreover, that
cannot arise from the conventional Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) mechanism.
Thus, direct confirmation of their existence, even in a small subset of the
cuprates, could have much broader implications for our understanding of high
temperature superconductivity. We propose experiments to observe fractional
flux quantization, which thereby could confirm the existence of these states.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; new version in Nature Physics format with a
discussion of the effective Josephson coupling J2 and minor changes. Mildly
edited abstract. v3: corrected versio
Real Space Imaging of Spin Stripe Domain Fluctuations in a Complex Oxide
Understanding the formation and dynamics of charge and spin-ordered states in low-dimensional transition metal oxide materials is crucial to understanding unconventional high-temperature superconductivity. La2âxSrxNiO4ĂŸÎŽ (LSNO) has attracted much attention due to its interesting spin dynamics. Recent x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy studies have revealed slow dynamics of the spin order (SO) stripes in LSNO. Here, we applied resonant soft x-ray ptychography to map the spatial distribution of the SO stripe domain inhomogeneity in real space. The reconstructed images show the SO domains are spatially anisotropic, in agreement with previous diffraction studies. For the SO stripe domains, it is found that the correlation lengths along different directions are strongly coupled in space. Surprisingly, fluctuations were observed in the real space amplitude signal, rather than the phase or position. We attribute the observed slow dynamics of the stripe domains in LSNO to thermal fluctuations of the SO domain boundaries
Spin and charge order in the vortex lattice of the cuprates: experiment and theory
I summarize recent results, obtained with E. Demler, K. Park, A. Polkovnikov,
M. Vojta, and Y. Zhang, on spin and charge correlations near a magnetic quantum
phase transition in the cuprates. STM experiments on slightly overdoped BSCCO
(J.E. Hoffman et al., Science 295, 466 (2002)) are consistent with the
nucleation of static charge order coexisting with dynamic spin correlations
around vortices, and neutron scattering experiments have measured the magnetic
field dependence of static spin order in the underdoped regime in LSCO (B. Lake
et al., Nature 415, 299 (2002)) and LaCuO_4+y (B. Khaykovich et al., Phys. Rev.
B 66, 014528 (2002)). Our predictions provide a semi-quantitative description
of these observations, with only a single parameter measuring distance from the
quantum critical point changing with doping level. These results suggest that a
common theory of competing spin, charge and superconducting orders provides a
unified description of all the cuprates.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures; Proceedings of the Mexican Meeting on
Mathematical and Experimental Physics, Mexico City, September 2001, to be
published by Kluwer Academic/Plenum Press; (v2) added clarifications and
updated reference
Scaling behavior of low-temperature orthorhombic domains in the prototypical high-temperature superconductor Laâ.âââ Baâ.âââ CuOâ
Structural symmetry breaking and recovery in condensed-matter systems are closely related to exotic physical properties such as superconductivity (SC), magnetism, spin density waves, and charge density waves (CDWs). The interplay between different order parameters is intricate and often subject to intense debate, as in the case of CDW order and superconductivity. In Laâ.âââ
Baâ.âââ
CuO
Structure of charge density waves in La1.875 Ba0.125 CuO4
Although charge density wave (CDW) correlations exist in several families of cuprate superconductors, they exhibit substantial variation in CDW wave vector and correlation length, indicating a key role for CDW-lattice interactions. We investigated this interaction in La1.875Ba0.125CuO4 using single-crystal x-ray diffraction to collect a large number of CDW peak intensities and determined the Cu and La/Ba atomic distortions induced by the formation of CDW order. Within the CuO2 planes, the distortions involve a periodic modulation of the Cu-Cu spacing along the direction of the ordering wave vector. The charge ordering within the copper-oxygen layer induces an out-of-plane breathing modulation of the surrounding lanthanum layers, which leads to a related distortion on the adjacent copper-oxygen layer. Our result implies that the CDW-related structural distortions do not remain confined to a single layer but rather propagate an appreciable distance through the crystal. This leads to overlapping structural modulations, in which CuO2 planes exhibit distortions arising from the orthogonal CDWs in adjacent layers as well as distortions from the CDW within the layer itself. We attribute this striking effect to the weak c-axis charge screening in cuprates and suggest this effect could help couple the CDWs between adjacent planes in the crystal
Neutron Scattering and Its Application to Strongly Correlated Systems
Neutron scattering is a powerful probe of strongly correlated systems. It can
directly detect common phenomena such as magnetic order, and can be used to
determine the coupling between magnetic moments through measurements of the
spin-wave dispersions. In the absence of magnetic order, one can detect diffuse
scattering and dynamic correlations. Neutrons are also sensitive to the
arrangement of atoms in a solid (crystal structure) and lattice dynamics
(phonons). In this chapter, we provide an introduction to neutrons and neutron
sources. The neutron scattering cross section is described and formulas are
given for nuclear diffraction, phonon scattering, magnetic diffraction, and
magnon scattering. As an experimental example, we describe measurements of
antiferromagnetic order, spin dynamics, and their evolution in the
La(2-x)Ba(x)CuO(4) family of high-temperature superconductors.Comment: 31 pages, chapter for "Strongly Correlated Systems: Experimental
Techniques", edited by A. Avella and F. Mancin
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