Neutron-scattering study of stripe-phase order of holes and spins in La{sub 1.48}Nd{sub 0.4}Sr{sub 0.12}CuO{sub 4}
- Department of Physics, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973 (United States)
- Superconductivity Research Course, The University of Tokyo, Yayoi 2-11-16, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113 (Japan)
- Department of Physics, Columbia University, 538 West 120th Street, New York, New York 10027 (United States)
We present a neutron diffraction study of charge and spin order within the CuO{sub 2} planes of La{sub 1.48}Nd{sub 0.4}Sr{sub 0.12}CuO{sub 4}, a crystal in which superconductivity is anomalously suppressed. At low temperatures we observe elastic magnetic superlattice peaks of the type (1/2{plus_minus}{epsilon},1/2,0) and charge-order peaks at (2{plus_minus}2{epsilon},0,0), where {epsilon}=0.118. After cooling the crystal through the low-temperature-orthorhombic (LTO) to low-temperature-tetragonal (LTT) phase transition near 70 K, the charge-order peaks appear first at {approximately}60 K, with the magnetic peaks appearing below 50 K. The magnetic peaks increase in intensity by an order of magnitude below 3 K due to ordering of the Nd ions. We show that the observed diffraction features are consistent with stripe-phase order, in which the dopant-induced holes collect in domain walls that separate antiferromagnetic antiphase domains. The {bold Q} dependence of the magnetic scattering indicates that the low-temperature correlation length within the planes is substantial ({approximately}170 A), but only very weak correlations exist between next-nearest-neighbor planes. Correlations between nearest-neighbor layers are frustrated by pinning of the charge stripes to the lattice distortions of the LTT phase. The spin-density-wave amplitude corresponds to a Cu moment of 0.10{plus_minus}0.03 {mu}{sub {ital B}}. The behavior of the electrical resistivity within the LTT phase is examined, and the significance of stripe-phase correlations for understanding the unusual transport properties of layered cuprates is discussed. {copyright} {ital 1996 The American Physical Society.}
- Research Organization:
- Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-76CH00016
- OSTI ID:
- 383191
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review, B: Condensed Matter, Vol. 54, Issue 10; Other Information: PBD: Sep 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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