Emergence of charge order from the vortex state of a high-temperature superconductor

Abstract

Evidence is mounting that charge order competes with superconductivity in high T c cuprates. Whether this has any relationship to the pairing mechanism is unknown as neither the universality of the competition nor its microscopic nature has been established. Here, we show using nuclear magnetic resonance that charge order in YBa 2 Cu 3 O y has maximum strength inside the superconducting dome, similar to compounds of the La 2 À x (Sr,Ba) x CuO 4 family. In YBa 2 Cu 3 O y , this occurs at doping levels of p ¼ 0.11-0.12. We further show that the overlap of halos of incipient charge order around vortex cores, similar to those visualised in Bi 2 Sr 2 CaCu 2 O 8 þ d , can explain the threshold magnetic field at which long-range charge order emerges. These results reveal universal features of a competition in which charge order and superconductivity appear as joint instabilities of the same normal state, whose relative balance can be field-tuned in the vortex state.

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

“…1B) via X-ray scattering at high magnetic fields (13,14). This reveals the character (i.e., 3D) of the high-field charge ordering previously inferred by other measurements (3)(4)(5)(6). At a magnetic field of ∼ 30 T, its in-and out-of-plane correlation lengths are of the order of 100 and 10 lattice constants, respectively (13,14), which are significantly larger than those of the zero-field 2D CDW.…”

“…Although the proposed inhomogeneity picture qualitatively captures our experimental observations, it is not obvious that the Cu and O lines in NMR are readily interpreted as the sum of contributions from a unidirectional and a bidirectional CDW (4,6,21). We tentatively suggest that this reflects the fact that the local CDW correlations-to which NMR is most sensitive-are similar in the more-and less-disordered regions, and that it is only subtle, long-distance correlations that distinguish them.…”

“…high-temperature superconductors | charge-density-wave order | high magnetic field X-ray scattering | vestigial nematic order | competing order C harge-density-wave (CDW) order has been found to exist universally in the hole-doped superconducting cuprates (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18), and the common characteristics at zero magnetic field include bidirectionality, quasi-2D and short-ranged correlations (7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17). More specifically, the CDW diffraction patterns are found in both directions of Cu-O bonds in the CuO2 plane (Fig.…”

Cu nuclear magnetic resonance study of charge and spin stripe order inLa1.875Ba0.125CuO4

“…Recently, charge and spin stripe order has emerged as one of the crucial ingredients of the cuprate phenomenology [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] , and NMR in these ordered phases has once more come into focus. In the yttrium-123 (YBCO) family, copper NMR has provided direct evidence of a commensurate charge stripe ordering at high magnetic fields [8][9][10] , while lanthanum NMR in the 214 family (La 2−x Sr x CuO 4 -LSCO, La 2−x Ba x CuO 4 -LBCO, La 2−x−y Eu y Sr x CuO 4 -LESCO and similar) detects the influence of stripe-related fluctuations [11][12][13][14]16 . However, charge stripes in the 214 family are difficult to study directly by in-plane copper NMR/NQR, due to an effect known as wipeout.…”

Holographic maps of quasiparticle interference

“…We specifically consider the scattering of quasiparticles with finite lifetime from a local modulation of the pairing gap. This type of modulations can be induced by static disorder, or in the presence of an applied magnetic field, by the core of a pinned vortex 29,53,54 . The resulting g map is presented in Fig.…”