No Arabic abstract
Systematic measurements of the magnetic susceptibility were performed on single crystals of lightly doped La2-xSrxCuO4 (x=0.03, 0.04 and 0.05). For all samples the temperature dependence of the in-plane magnetic susceptibility shows typical spin-glass features with spin-glass transition temperatures Tg of 6.3K, 5.5K and 5.0K for x=0.03, 0.04 and 0.05, respectively. The canonical spin-glass order parameter extracted from the in-plane susceptibility of all the samples follows a universal scaling curve. On the other hand, the out-of-plane magnetic susceptibility deviates from Curie law below a temperature Tdv, higher than Tg. Comparing with previous neutron scattering results with an instrumental energy resolution of 0.25 meV from Wakimoto et al., the x-dependence of Tdv is qualitatively the same as that of Tel, the temperature below which the elastic magnetic scattering develops around (pi, pi). Thus, a revised magnetic phase diagram in the lightly doped region of La2-xSrxCuO4 is proposed. The Curie constants calculated from the in-plane susceptibility are independent of the Sr concentration. On the basis of the cluster spin-glass model, this fact might reflect an inhomogeneous distribution of doped holes in the CuO2 plane, such as in a stripe structure.
We investigated the doping dependence of magnetic excitations in the lightly doped cuprate La2-xSrxCuO4 via combined studies of resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) at the Cu L3-edge and theoretical calculations. With increasing doping, the magnon dispersion is found to be essentially unchanged, but the spectral width broadens and the spectral weight varies differently at different momenta. Near the Brillouin zone center, we directly observe bimagnon excitations which possess the same energy scale and doping dependence as previously observed by Raman spectroscopy. They disperse weakly in energy-momentum space, and are consistent with a bimagnon dispersion that is renormalized by the magnon-magnon interaction at the zone center.
Highly disordered magnetism confined to individual weakly interacting vortices is detected by muon spin rotation in two different families of high-transition-temperature superconductors, but only in samples on the low-doping side of the low-temperature normal state metal-to-insulator crossover (MIC). The results support an extended quantum phase transition (QPT) theory of competing magnetic and superconducting orders that incorporates the coupling between CuO2 planes. Contrary to what has been inferred from previous experiments, the static magnetism that coexists with superconductivity near the field-induced QPT is not ordered. Our findings unravel the mystery of the MIC and establish that the normal state of high-temperature superconductors is ubiquitously governed by a magnetic quantum critical point in the superconducting phase.
We report high-resolution resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) measurements of the collective spin fluctuations in three compositions of the superconducting cuprate system La2-xSrxCuO4. We have mapped out the excitations throughout much of the 2-D (h,k) Brillouin zone. The spin fluctuations in La2-xSrxCuO4 are found to be fairly well-described by a damped harmonic oscillator model, thus our data allows us to determine the full wavevector dependence of the damping parameter. This parameter increases with doping and is largest along the (h, h) line, where it is peaked near (0.2,0.2). We have used a new procedure to determine the absolute wavevector-dependent susceptibility for the doped compositions La2-xSrxCuO4 (x=0.12,0.16) by normalising our data to La2CuO4 measurements made with inelastic neutron scattering (INS). We find that the evolution with doping of the intensity of high-energy excitations measured by RIXS and INS is consistent. For the doped compositions, the wavevector-dependent susceptibility is much larger at (1/4,1/4) than at (1/2,0). It increases rapidly along the (h,h) line towards the antiferromagnetic wavevector of the parent compound (1/2,1/2). Thus, the strongest magnetic excitations, and those predicted to favour superconductive pairing, occur towards the (1/2,1/2) position as observed by INS.
We report a high precision search for orbital-like magnetic order in the pseudogap region of La2-xSrxCuO4 single crystals using zero-field muon spin relaxation (ZF-muSR). In contrast to previous studies of this kind, the effects of the dipolar and quadrupolar interactions of the muon with nearby nuclei are calculated. ZF-muSR spectra with a high number of counts were also recorded to determine whether a magnetically ordered phase exists in dilute regions of the sample. Despite these efforts, we find no evidence for static magnetic order of any kind in the pseudogap region above the hole-doping concentration p = 0.13.
We present a volume-sensitive high-energy x-ray diffraction study of the underdoped cuprate high temperature superconductor La2-xSrxCuO4 (x = 0.12, Tc=27 K) in applied magnetic field. Bulk short-range charge stripe order with propagation vector q_ch = (0.231, 0, 0.5) is demonstrated to exist below T_ch = 85(10) K and shown to compete with superconductivity. We argue that bulk charge ordering arises from fluctuating stripes that become pinned near boundaries between orthorhombic twin domains.