Nernst effect in the cuprate superconductor YBCO: Broken rotational and translational symmetries

Abstract

The Nernst coefficient of the cuprate superconductor YBa2Cu3Oy was recently shown to become strongly anisotropic within the basal plane when cooled below the pseudogap temperature T*, revealing that the pseudogap phase breaks the four-fold rotational symmetry of the CuO2 planes. Here we report on the evolution of this Nernst anisotropy at low temperature, once superconductivity is suppressed by a magnetic field. We find that the anisotropy drops rapidly below 80 K, to vanish in the T=0 limit. We show that this loss of anisotropy is due to the emergence of a small high-mobility electron-like pocket in the Fermi surface at low temperature, a reconstruction attributed to a low-temperature state that breaks the translational symmetry of the CuO2 planes. We discuss the sequence of broken symmetries - first rotational, then translational - in terms of an electronic nematic-to-smectic transition such as could arise when unidirectional spin or charge modulations order. We compare YBa2Cu3Oy with iron-pnictide superconductors where the process of (unidirectional) antiferromagnetic ordering gives rises to the same sequence of broken symmetries.

7 pages, 5 figures

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• Charge Order in the Pseudogap Phase of Cuprate Superconductors
• Hall, Seebeck, and Nernst Coefficients of Underdoped HgBa2CuO4+d: Fermi-Surface Reconstruction in an Archetypal Cuprate Superconductor
• Vestigial nematicity from spin and/or charge order in the cuprates
• Tilted loop currents in cuprate superconductors
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• Determination of the resistivity anisotropy of orthorhombic materials via transverse resistivity measurements
• Parametrically amplified phase-incoherent superconductivity in YBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_{6+x}$
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• Transport signatures of spatially modulated electronic nematic phases
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• Magnetization of underdoped YBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_y$ above the irreversibility field
• Emergence of charge order in a staggered loop-current phase of cuprate high-temperature superconductors
• Intertwined Orders and the Physics of High Temperature Superconductors
• Die Hard Holographic Phenomenology of Cuprates
• Unified approach to electrical and thermal transport in high-$T_c$ superconductors
• Transverse Thermoelectric Response as a Probe for Existence of Quasiparticles
• Divergence of the quadrupole-strain susceptibility of YbRu${}_2$Ge${}_2$; a local moment realization of electronic nematicity
• Theory of fermion condensation as an analog of the liquid-drop theory of atomic nuclei
• A model description of the supersolid state in YBCO
• Underdoped cuprates, manifestations of boson-fermion crossover, `quantum oscillations' and the robust fractional quantum Hall state nu = 2/5