Electronic phases with symmetry properties matching those of conventional liquid crystals have recently been discovered in transport experiments on semiconductor heterostructures and metal oxides at milli-Kelvin temperatures. We report the spontaneous onset of a onedimensional, incommensurate modulation of the spin system in the high-temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3O6.45 upon cooling below ~150 K, while static magnetic order is absent above 2 K. The evolution of this modulation with temperature and doping parallels that of the in-plane anisotropy of the resistivity, indicating an electronic nematic phase that is stable over a wide temperature range. The results suggest that soft spin fluctuations are a microscopic route towards electronic liquid crystals, and nematic order can coexist with high-temperature superconductivity in underdoped cuprates.
@article{arxiv.0807.1861,
title = {Electronic liquid crystal state in the high-temperature superconductor YBCO(6.45)},
author = {V. Hinkov and D. Haug and B. Fauque and P. Bourges and Y. Sidis and A. Ivanov and C. Bernhard and C. T. Lin and B. Keimer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0807.1861},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
10 pages, 4+2 figures, includes a "materials and methods" as well as a "supporting text" section