Evolution of charge order topology across a magnetic phase transition in cuprate superconductors

Abstract

Charge order is now accepted as an integral constituent of cuprate high-temperature superconductors, one that is intimately related to other instabilities in the phase diagram including antiferromagnetism and superconductivity. Unlike nesting-induced Peierls-like density waves, the charge correlations in the CuO2 planes have been predicted to display a rich momentum space topology depending on the detailed fermiology of the system. However, to date charge order has only been observed along the high-symmetry Cu-O bond directions. Here, using resonant soft X-ray scattering, we investigate the evolution of the full momentum space topology of charge correlations in Ln2CuO4 (Ln=Nd, Pr) as a function of intrinsic electron doping. We report that, upon electron doping the parent Mott insulator, charge correlations first emerge in a hitherto-unobserved form, with full (Cinf) rotational symmetry in momentum-space. At higher doping levels, the orientation of charge correlations is sharply locked to the Cu-O bond high-symmetry directions, restoring a more conventional bidirectional charge order with enhanced correlation lengths. Through charge susceptibility calculations, we closely reproduce the drastic evolution in the topology of charge correlations across an antiferromagnetic quantum phase transition, highlighting the interplay between spin and charge degrees of freedom in electron-doped cuprates. Finally, using the established link between charge correlations and the underlying fermiology, we propose a revised phase diagram of Ln2CuO4 with a superconducting region extending toward the Mott limit.

Submitted to Nature Physics on April 20th, 2018. A revised version will appear in Nature Physics at 10.1038/s41567-018-0401-8

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• Charge ordering in superconducting copper oxides
• Dynamic electron correlations with charge order wavelength along all directions in the copper oxide plane
• Ubiquitous Charge Order Correlations in High-Temperature Superconducting Cuprates
• Pseudogap in a crystalline insulator doped by disordered metals
• Charge order driven by multiple-Q spin fluctuations in heavily electron-doped iron selenide superconductors
• Low-energy quasi-circular electron correlations with charge order wavelength in ${\text{Bi}}_2{\text{Sr}}_2\text{Ca}{\text{Cu}}_2{\text{O}}_{8+\delta }$
• Critical Nematic Correlations Throughout the Doping Range in BSCCO
• Frustrated charge density wave and quasi-long-range bond-orientational order in the magnetic kagome FeGe
• Interplay of spin and charge order in the electron-doped cuprates
• Ring-like shaped charge modulations in the t-J model with long-range Coulomb interaction
• Magnetic field-tuned quantum criticality in optimally electron-doped cuprate thin films
• Dynamic charge order from strong correlations in the cuprates
• Charge-Density-Wave State in Extremely Overdoped Cuprates Driven by Phonons
• Orbital-selective time-domain signature of nematicity dynamics in the charge-density-wave phase of La${}_{1.65}$Eu${}_{0.2}$Sr${}_{0.15}$CuO${}_4$