A system of strongly-interacting electron-lattice polarons can exhibit charge and orbital order at sufficiently high polaron concentrations. In this study, the structure of short-range polaron correlations in the layered colossal magnetoresistive perovskite manganite, La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7, has been determined by a crystallographic analysis of broad satellite maxima observed in diffuse X-ray and neutron scattering data. The resulting q=(0.3,0,1) modulation is a longitudinal octahedral-stretch mode, consistent with an incommensurate Jahn-Teller-coupled charge-density-wave fluctuations, that implies an unusual orbital-stripe pattern parallel to the <100> directions.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0106477,
title = {The Structure of Nanoscale Polaron Correlations in La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7},
author = {B. J. Campbell and R. Osborn and D. N. Argyriou and L. Vasiliu-Doloc and J. F. Mitchell and S. K. Sinha and U. Ruett and C. D. Ling and Z. Islam and J. W. Lynn},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0106477},
year = {2009}
}