2008/01/11 by V. Hinkov, D. Haug, Benoît Fauqué +7 · 8 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.str-el #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1126/science.1152309
published as Science 319, 597 (2008) · 10 pages, 4+2 figures, includes a "materials and methods" as well as a "supporting text" section
openalex publication_date 2008/01/11 · arxiv created 2008/07/11 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
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 millikelvin temperatures. We report the spontaneous onset of a one-dimensional, incommensurate modulation of the spin system in the high-transition-temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3O6.45 upon cooling below approximately 150 kelvin, whereas static magnetic order is absent above 2 kelvin. 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 toward electronic liquid crystals and that nematic order can coexist with high-temperature superconductivity in underdoped cuprates.