High-Temperature Charge-Stripe Correlations in <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi>La</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>1.675</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi>Eu</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>0.2</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi>Sr</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>0.125</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi>CuO</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>4</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:math>
Qisi Wang, Masafumi Horio, Karin von Arx, Yao Shen, Deepak John Mukkattukavil, Yasmine Sassa, Oleh Ivashko, C. E. Matt, Sunseng Pyon, T. Takayama, H. Takagi, T. Kurosawa, N. Momono, Masahiro Oda, Tadashi Adachi, S. M. Haidar, Yuya Koike, Yi Tseng, Wenliang Zhang, Jun Zhao, K. Kummer, Mirian García‐Fernández, Ke‐Jin Zhou, N. B. Christensen, H. M. Rønnow, Thorsten Schmitt, J. Chang
Abstract
We use resonant inelastic x-ray scattering to investigate charge-stripe correlations in La_{1.675}Eu_{0.2}Sr_{0.125}CuO_{4}. By differentiating elastic from inelastic scattering, it is demonstrated that charge-stripe correlations precede both the structural low-temperature tetragonal phase and the transport-defined pseudogap onset. The scattering peak amplitude from charge stripes decays approximately as T^{-2} towards our detection limit. The in-plane integrated intensity, however, remains roughly temperature independent. Therefore, although the incommensurability shows a remarkably large increase at high temperature, our results are interpreted via a single scattering constituent. In fact, direct comparison to other stripe-ordered compounds (La_{1.875}Ba_{0.125}CuO_{4}, La_{1.475}Nd_{0.4}Sr_{0.125}CuO_{4}, and La_{1.875}Sr_{0.125}CuO_{4}) suggests a roughly constant integrated scattering intensity across all these compounds. Our results therefore provide a unifying picture for the charge-stripe ordering in La-based cuprates. As charge correlations in La_{1.675}Eu_{0.2}Sr_{0.125}CuO_{4} extend beyond the low-temperature tetragonal and pseudogap phase, their emergence heralds a spontaneous symmetry breaking in this compound.