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High-temperature superconductivity

How the cuprates hid their stripes

Nature volume 468, pages 643–644 (2010)Cite this article

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Extensive mapping of local electronic structure in copper oxide superconductors reveals fluctuating stripe-like electron patterns that appear as a high-temperature precursor to superconductivity. See Letter p.677

Copper oxide compounds, known as the cuprates, may be most famous for their high-temperature superconducting state. But aficionados are fascinated by a phenomenon called the pseudogap, which appears at yet higher temperatures. The pseudogap's basic nature, as well as its relationship to superconductivity and to a menagerie of other possible related states of matter, is poorly understood. On page 677 of this issue, Parker et al.1 report the observation in one family of cuprate superconductors of a fluctuating stripe-like electron arrangement that is ubiquitous throughout the pseudogap region of the materials' phase diagram and seems to engulf the superconducting region.

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Figure 1: Of zebras and cuprates.

REI/WIKIPEDIA

Figure 2: Stripe-like electronic order in the cuprates.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kathryn A. Moler is in the Departments of Applied Physics and of Physics, and the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA. kmoler@stanford.edu,

    Kathryn A. Moler

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  1. Kathryn A. Moler
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Moler, K. How the cuprates hid their stripes. Nature 468, 643–644 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/468643a

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