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- Title
Crystallization of charge holes in the spin ladder of Sr<sub>14</sub>Cu<sub>24</sub>O<sub>41</sub>.
- Authors
Abbamonte, P.; Blumberg, G.; Rusydi, A.; Gozar, A.; Evans, P.G.; Siegrist, T.; Venema, L.; Eisaki, H.; Isaacs, E.D.; Sawatzky, G.A.
- Abstract
Determining the nature of the electronic phases that compete with superconductivity in high-transition-temperature (high- Tc) superconductors is one of the deepest problems in condensed matter physics. One candidate is the `stripe' phase, in which the charge carriers (holes) condense into rivers of charge that separate regions of antiferro magnetism. A related but lesser known system is the `spin ladder', which consists of two coupled chains of magnetic ions forming an array of rungs. A doped ladder can be thought of as a high-Tc material with lower dimensionality, and has been predicted to exhibit both superconductivity and an insulating `hole crystal' phase in which the carriers are localized through many-body interactions. The competition between the two resembles that believed to operate between stripes and superconductivity in high-Tc materials. Here we report the existence of a hole crystal in the doped spin ladder of Sr14Cu24O41 using a resonant X-ray scattering technique. This phase exists without a detectable distortion in the structural lattice, indicating that it arises from many-body electronic effects. Our measurements confirm theoretical predictions, and support the picture that proximity to charge ordered states is a general property of superconductivity in copper oxides.
- Subjects
CRYSTALLIZATION; COPPER oxide superconductors; HIGH temperature superconductors; PHYSICAL &; theoretical chemistry; ANTIFERROMAGNETISM; CRYSTALS
- Publication
Nature, 2004, Vol 431, Issue 7012, p1078
- ISSN
0028-0836
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1038/nature02925