Two-dimensional geometry of spin excitations in the high-transition-temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3O6+x

The fundamental building block of the copper oxide superconductors is a Cu 4 O 4 square plaquette. The plaquettes in most of these materials are slightly distorted to form a rectangular lattice, for which an influential theory predicts that high-transition-temperature (high- T c ) superconductivity...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature (London) Vol. 430; no. 7000; pp. 650 - 654
Main Authors: Hinkov, V., Pailhès, S., Bourges, P., Sidis, Y., Ivanov, A., Kulakov, A., Lin, C. T., Chen, D. P., Bernhard, C., Keimer, B.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 05.08.2004
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects:
Condensed Matter
Crystals
Geometry
High temperature superconductors
Humanities and Social Sciences
letter
multidisciplinary
Physics
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Strongly Correlated Electrons
Superconductivity
ISSN:0028-0836, 1476-4687, 1476-4687
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The fundamental building block of the copper oxide superconductors is a Cu 4 O 4 square plaquette. The plaquettes in most of these materials are slightly distorted to form a rectangular lattice, for which an influential theory predicts that high-transition-temperature (high- T c ) superconductivity is nucleated in ‘stripes’ aligned along one of the axes 1 , 2 , 3 . This theory received strong support from experiments that indicated a one-dimensional character for the magnetic excitations in the high- T c material YBa 2 Cu 3 O 6.6 (ref. 4 ). Here we report neutron scattering data on ‘untwinned’ YBa 2 Cu 3 O 6+ x crystals, in which the orientation of the rectangular lattice is maintained throughout the entire volume. Contrary to the earlier claim 4 , we demonstrate that the geometry of the magnetic fluctuations is two-dimensional. Rigid stripe arrays therefore appear to be ruled out over a wide range of doping levels in YBa 2 Cu 3 O 6+ x , but the data may be consistent with liquid-crystalline stripe order 5 . The debate about stripes has therefore been reopened.
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ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
1476-4687
DOI:10.1038/nature02774