Publication Date:
2011-07-23
Description:
We study the coexisting smectic modulations and intra-unit-cell nematicity in the pseudogap states of underdoped Bi(2)Sr(2)CaCu(2)O(8+delta). By visualizing their spatial components separately, we identified 2pi topological defects throughout the phase-fluctuating smectic states. Imaging the locations of large numbers of these topological defects simultaneously with the fluctuations in the intra-unit-cell nematicity revealed strong empirical evidence for a coupling between them. From these observations, we propose a Ginzburg-Landau functional describing this coupling and demonstrate how it can explain the coexistence of the smectic and intra-unit-cell broken symmetries and also correctly predict their interplay at the atomic scale. This theoretical perspective can lead to unraveling the complexities of the phase diagram of cuprate high-critical-temperature superconductors.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Mesaros, A -- Fujita, K -- Eisaki, H -- Uchida, S -- Davis, J C -- Sachdev, S -- Zaanen, J -- Lawler, M J -- Kim, Eun-Ah -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2011 Jul 22;333(6041):426-30. doi: 10.1126/science.1201082.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Instituut-Lorentz for Theoretical Physics, Universiteit Leiden, 2300 Leiden, Netherlands.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21778393" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
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Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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