Title: Ideal charge-density-wave order in the high-field state of superconducting YBCO

Abstract

The existence of charge-density-wave (CDW) correlations in cuprate superconductors has now been established. However, the nature of the CDW ground state has remained uncertain because disorder and the presence of superconductivity typically limit the CDW correlation lengths to only a dozen unit cells or less. Here we explore the field-induced 3D CDW correlations in extremely pure detwinned crystals of YBa₂Cu₃O₂ (YBCO) ortho-II and ortho-VIII at magnetic fields in excess of the resistive upper critical field (H_c2) where superconductivity is heavily suppressed. We observe that the 3D CDW is unidirectional and possesses a long in-plane correlation length as well as significant correlations between neighboring CuO₂ planes. It is significant that we observe only a single sharply defined transition at a critical field proportional to H_c2, given that the field range used in this investigation overlaps with other high-field experiments including quantum oscillation measurements. The correlation volume is at least two to three orders of magnitude larger than that of the zero-field CDW. Furthermore, this is by far the largest CDW correlation volume observed in any cuprate crystal and so is presumably representative of the high-field ground state of an “ideal” disorder-free cuprate.

Authors:

Jang, H. ^[1]; Lee, W. -S. ^[2]; Nojiri, H. ^[3]; Matsuzawa, S. ^[3]; Yasumura, H. ^[3]; Nie, L. ^[4]; Maharaj, A. V. ^[4]; Gerber, S. ^[5]; Liu, Y. -J. ^[1]; Mehta, A. ^[1]; Bonn, D. A. ^[6]; Liang, R. ^[6]; Hardy, W. N. ^[6]; Burns, C. A. ^[7]; Islam, Z. ^[8]; Song, S. ^[9]; Hastings, J. ^[9]; Devereaux, T. P. ^[2]; Shen, Z. -X. ^[10]; Kivelson, S. A. ^[4] more »; Kao, C. -C. ^[11]; Zhu, D. ^[9]; Lee, J. -S. ^[1] « less

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025,
2. Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University, Menlo Park, CA 94025,
3. Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Katahira 2-1-1, Sendai 980-8577, Japan,
4. Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Departments of Physics and Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305,
5. SwissFEL, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland,
6. Department of Physics &, Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z1,, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Toronto, ON, Canada M5G 1Z8,
7. Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025,, Department of Physics, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008,
8. The Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439,
9. Linac Coherent Light Source, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025,
10. Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University, Menlo Park, CA 94025,, Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Departments of Physics and Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305,
11. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025

Publication Date:

Mon Dec 05 00:00:00 EST 2016

Research Org.:

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States); Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences and Engineering Division

OSTI Identifier:

1334549

Alternate Identifier(s):

OSTI ID: 1332900; OSTI ID: 1340982

Report Number(s):

SLAC-PUB-16871
Journal ID: ISSN 0027-8424

Grant/Contract Number:  

AC02-76SF00515; AC02-06CH11357

Resource Type:

Published Article

Journal Name:

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Name: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Journal Volume: 113 Journal Issue: 51; Journal ID: ISSN 0027-8424

Publisher:

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; MATSCI; SYNCHRAD; XFEL; high-temperature superconductors; charge-density-wave order; high magnetic field X-ray scattering; vestigial nematic order; competing order