Publication Date:
2015-09-19
Description:
It has recently been established that the high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconducting state coexists with short-range charge-density-wave order and quenched disorder arising from dopants and strain. This complex, multiscale phase separation invites the development of theories of high-temperature superconductivity that include complexity. The nature of the spatial interplay between charge and dopant order that provides a basis for nanoscale phase separation remains a key open question, because experiments have yet to probe the unknown spatial distribution at both the nanoscale and mesoscale (between atomic and macroscopic scale). Here we report micro X-ray diffraction imaging of the spatial distribution of both short-range charge-density-wave 'puddles' (domains with only a few wavelengths) and quenched disorder in HgBa2CuO4 + y, the single-layer cuprate with the highest Tc, 95 kelvin (refs 26-28). We found that the charge-density-wave puddles, like the steam bubbles in boiling water, have a fat-tailed size distribution that is typical of self-organization near a critical point. However, the quenched disorder, which arises from oxygen interstitials, has a distribution that is contrary to the usually assumed random, uncorrelated distribution. The interstitial-oxygen-rich domains are spatially anticorrelated with the charge-density-wave domains, because higher doping does not favour the stripy charge-density-wave puddles, leading to a complex emergent geometry of the spatial landscape for superconductivity.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Campi, G -- Bianconi, A -- Poccia, N -- Bianconi, G -- Barba, L -- Arrighetti, G -- Innocenti, D -- Karpinski, J -- Zhigadlo, N D -- Kazakov, S M -- Burghammer, M -- Zimmermann, M v -- Sprung, M -- Ricci, A -- England -- Nature. 2015 Sep 17;525(7569):359-62. doi: 10.1038/nature14987.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Institute of Crystallography, CNR, via Salaria Km 29.300, Monterotondo Roma, I-00015, Italy. ; Rome International Center for Materials Science, Superstripes, RICMASS, via dei Sabelli 119A, I-00185 Roma, Italy. ; MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands. ; School of Mathematics, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4SN, UK. ; Institute of Crystallography, Sincrotrone Elettra UOS Trieste, Strada Statale 14 - Km 163,5 Area Science Park, 34149 Basovizza, Trieste, Italy. ; EPFL, Institute of Condensed Matter Physics, Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland. ; ETH, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich Laboratory for Solid State Physics, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland. ; Department of Chemistry, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow 119991, Russia. ; European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, BP 220, F-38043 Grenoble Cedex, France. ; Department of Analytical Chemistry, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281, S12 B-9000 Ghent, Belgium. ; Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Notkestrasse 85, D-22607 Hamburg, Germany.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26381983" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
Permalink