G. Ghiringhelli, M. Le Tacon, M. Minola, S. Blanco-Canosa, C. Mazzoli, N. B. Brookes, G. M. De Luca, A. Frano, D. G. Hawthorn, F. He, T. Loew, M. Moretti Sala, D. C. Peets, M. Salluzzo, E. Schierle, R. Sutarto, G. A. Sawatzky, E. Weschke, B. Keimer, L. Braicovich
There are increasing indications that superconductivity competes with other orders in cuprate superconductors, but obtaining direct evidence with bulk-sensitive probes is challenging. We have used resonant soft x-ray scattering to identify two-dimensional charge fluctuations with an incommensurate periodicity of $\bf \sim 3.2$ lattice units in the copper-oxide planes of the superconductors (Y,Nd)Ba$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+x}$ with hole concentrations $0.09 \leq p \leq 0.13$ per planar Cu ion. The intensity and correlation length of the fluctuation signal increase strongly upon cooling down to the superconducting transition temperature, $T_c$; further cooling below $T_c$ abruptly reverses the divergence of the charge correlations. In combination with prior observations of a large gap in the spin excitation spectrum, these data indicate an incipient charge-density-wave instability that competes with superconductivity.
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http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.0915
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