2004/08/01 by V. Hinkov, S. Pailhes, S. Pailhès +9 · 4 citations
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Condensed matter physics #Copper oxide #Geometry #Ising model #Lattice (music) #Magnetic properties of thin films #Materials science #Mathematics #Neutron scattering #Oxide #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum mechanics #Scattering #Square lattice #Superconductivity #cond-mat.str-el #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/nature02774
published as Nature 430, 650 (2004)
openalex publication_date 2004/08/01 · arxiv created 2004/08/17 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The fundamental building block of the copper oxide superconductors is a Cu4O4 square plaquette. In most of these materials, the plaquettes are slightly distorted and form a rectangular lattice. An influential theory predicts that high-temperature superconductivity is nucleated in "stripes" aligned along one of the axes of this lattice. This theory had received strong support from experiments that appeared to indicate a one-dimensional character of the magnetic excitations in the high temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3O6.6. Here we report neutron scattering data on "untwinned" YBa2Cu3O6+x crystals, in which the orientation of the rectangular lattice is maintained throughout the entire volume. Contrary to the earlier claim, we demonstrate that the geometry of the magnetic fluctuations is two-dimensional. Rigid stripe arrays therefore appear to be ruled out over a wide range of doping levels in YBa2Cu3O6+x, but the data may be consistent with liquid-crystalline stripe order.