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Orbital symmetry of charge-density-wave order in La1.875Ba0.125CuO4 and YBa2Cu3O6.67

Nature Materials volume 15, pages 616–620 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Recent theories of charge-density-wave (CDW) order in high-temperature superconductors have predicted a primarily d CDW orbital symmetry. Here, we report on the orbital symmetry of CDW order in the canonical cuprate superconductors La1.875Ba0.125CuO4 (LBCO) and YBa2Cu3O6.67 (YBCO), using resonant soft X-ray scattering and a model mapped to the CDW orbital symmetry. From measurements sensitive to the O sublattice, we conclude that LBCO has predominantly s′ CDW orbital symmetry, in contrast to the d orbital symmetry recently reported in other cuprates. Furthermore, we show for YBCO that the CDW orbital symmetry differs along the a and b crystal axes and that these both differ from LBCO. This work highlights CDW orbital symmetry as an additional key property that distinguishes the different cuprate families. We discuss how the CDW symmetry may be related to the ‘1/8–anomaly’ and to static spin ordering.

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Figure 1: Scattering geometry and schematics of CDW order.
Figure 2: Resonant scattering from CDW order on the O and Cu sublattices of LBCO.
Figure 3: Cu sublattice scattering in YBCO.
Figure 4: Photon energy dependence of scattering from O‖ and O⊥ sublattices.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge insightful discussions with S. Sachdev, J. C. Davis, W. A. Atkinson, G. A. Sawatzky, R. Comin and A. Damascelli. This work was supported by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Research described in this paper was performed at the Canadian Light Source, which is funded by the CFI, the NSERC, the National Research Council Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Government of Saskatchewan, Western Economic Diversification Canada, and the University of Saskatchewan. J.G. and M.Z. were supported by the German Science Foundation (DFG) through the Emmy-Noether (GE1647/2-1) and the D-A-CH programme (GE 1647/3-1). The work at Brookhaven National Labs was supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Science and Engineering, US Department of Energy, under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, Waterloo N2L 3G1, Canada

    A. J. Achkar, Christopher McMahon & D. G. Hawthorn

  2. Canadian Light Source, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 2V3, Canada

    F. He & R. Sutarto

  3. Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research IFW Dresden, Helmholtzstraße 20, 01069 Dresden, Germany

    M. Zwiebler

  4. Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA

    M. Hücker & G. D. Gu

  5. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver V6T 1Z1, Canada

    Ruixing Liang, D. A. Bonn & W. N. Hardy

  6. Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Toronto, Ontario M5G 1Z8, Canada

    Ruixing Liang, D. A. Bonn, W. N. Hardy & D. G. Hawthorn

  7. Chemistry and Physics of Materials, Paris Lodron University Salzburg, Hellbrunner Strasse 34, 5020 Salzburg, Austria

    J. Geck

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Contributions

A.J.A. and D.G.H. analysed the data and wrote the manuscript. D.G.H., A.J.A., J.G. and M.H. conceived of the experiments that A.J.A., F.H., R.S., C.M., M.Z. and D.G.H. performed. M.H., J.G. and G.D.G. provided the LBCO crystals and R.L., D.A.B. and W.N.H. provided the YBCO crystal.

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Correspondence to D. G. Hawthorn.

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Achkar, A., He, F., Sutarto, R. et al. Orbital symmetry of charge-density-wave order in La1.875Ba0.125CuO4 and YBa2Cu3O6.67. Nature Mater 15, 616–620 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4568

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