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We show that 63Cu NMR spectra place strong constraints on both the nature and the concentration of oxygen defects in ortho-II YBa2Cu3Oy. Systematic deviation from ideal ortho-II order is revealed by the presence of inequivalent Cu sites in either full or empty chains. The results can be explained by two kinds of defects: oxygen clustering into additional chains, or fragments thereof, most likely present at all concentrations (6.4

Using 63Cu NMR, we establish that the enhancement of spin order by a magnetic field H in YBa2Cu3O6.45 arises from a competition with superconductivity because the effect occurs for H perpendicular, but not parallel, to the CuO2 planes, and it persists up to field values comparable to Hc2. We also find that the spin-freezing has a glassy nature and that the frozen state onsets at a temperature which is independent of the magnitude of H. These results, together with the presence of a competing charge-ordering instability at nearby doping levels, are strikingly parallel to those previously obtained in La-214. This suggests a universal interpretation of magnetic field effects in underdoped cuprates where the enhancement of spin order by the field may not be the primary phenomenon but rather a byproduct of the competition between superconductivity and charge order. Low-energy spin fluctuations are manifested up to relatively high temperatures where they partially mask the signature of the pseudogap in 1/T1 data of planar Cu sites.

We report on a photo-induced transient state of YBa2Cu2O6+x in which transport perpendicular to the Cu-O planes becomes highly coherent. This effect is achieved by excitation with mid-infrared optical pulses, tuned to the resonant frequency of apical oxygen vibrations, which modulate both lattice and electronic properties. Below the superconducting transition temperature Tc, the equilibrium signatures of superconducting interlayer coupling are enhanced. Most strikingly, the optical excitation induces a new reflectivity edge at higher frequency than the equilibrium Josephson plasma resonance, with a concomitant enhancement of the low frequency imaginary conductivity. Above Tc, the incoherent equilibrium conductivity becomes highly coherent, with the appearance of a reflectivity edge and a positive imaginary conductivity that increases with decreasing frequency. These features are observed up to room temperature in YBa2Cu2O6.45 and YBa2Cu2O6.5. The data above Tc can be fitted by hypothesizing that the light re-establishes a transient superconducting state over only a fraction of the solid, with a lifetime of a few picoseconds. Non-superconducting transport could also explain these observations, although one would have to assume transient carrier mobilities near 10^4 cm^2/(V.sec) at 100 K, with a density of charge carriers similar to the below Tc superfluid density. Our results are indicative of highly unconventional non-equilibrium physics and open new prospects for optical control of complex solids., Comment: 40 pages, 14 figures

As established by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) cleaved surfaces of the high temperature superconductor YBa$_2$Cu$_2$O$_{7-\delta}$ develop charge density wave (CDW) modulations in the one-dimensional (1D) CuO chains. At the same time, no signatures of the CDW have been reported in the spectral function of the chain band previously studied by photoemission. We use soft X-ray angle resolved photoemission (SX-ARPES) to detect a chain-derived surface band that had not been detected in previous work. The $2k_\textup{F}$ for the new surface band is found to be 0.55\,\AA$^{-1}$, which matches the wave vector of the CDW observed in direct space by STM. This reveals the relevance of the Fermi surface nesting for the formation of CDWs in the CuO chains in YBa$_2$Cu$_2$O$_{7-\delta}$. In agreement with the short range nature of the CDW order the newly detected surface band exhibits a pseudogap, whose energy scale also corresponds to that observed by STM.

We report a polarized neutron scattering study of the orbital-like magnetic order in strongly underdoped ${\rm YBa_2Cu_3O_{6.45}}$ and ${\rm YBa_2(Cu_{0.98}Zn_{0.02})_3O_{6.6}}$. Their hole doping levels are located on both sides of the critical doping $p_{MI}$ of a metal-insulator transition inferred from transport measurements. Our study reveals a drop down of the orbital-like order slightly below $p_{MI}$ with a steep decrease of both the ordering temperature $T_{mag}$ and the ordered moment. Above $p_{MI}$, substitution of quantum impurities does not change $T_{mag}$, whereas it lowers significantly the bulk ordered moment. The modifications of the orbital-like magnetic order are interpreted in terms of a competition with electronic liquid crystal phases around $p_{MI}$. This competition gives rise to a mixed magnetic state in ${\rm YBa_2Cu_3O_{6.45}}$ and a phase separation in ${\rm YBa_2(Cu_{0.98}Zn_{0.02})_3O_{6.6}}$., Comment: Submitted to PRB, 7 figures; http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.83.104504

We show that a multilayer analysis of the infrared c-axis response of RBa2Cu3O7-d (R=Y, Gd, Eu) provides important new information about the anomalous normal state properties of underdoped cuprate high temperature superconductors. Besides competing correlations which give rise to a pseudogap that depletes the low-energy electronic states below T*>>Tc, it enables us to identify the onset of a precursor superconducting state below Tons>Tc. We map out the doping phase diagram of Tons which reaches a maximum of ~180 K at strong underdoping and present magnetic field dependent data which confirm our conclusions., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

We present a neutron triple-axis and resonant spin-echo spectroscopy study of the spin correlations in untwinned YBCO crystals with x= 0.3, 0.35, and 0.45 as a function of temperature and magnetic field. As the temperature T approaches 0, all samples exhibit static incommensurate magnetic order with propagation vector along the a-direction in the CuO2 planes. The incommensurability delta increases monotonically with hole concentration, as it does in LSCO. However, delta is generally smaller than in LSCO at the same doping level. The intensity of the incommensurate Bragg reflections increases with magnetic field for YBCO(6.45) (superconducting Tc = 35 K), whereas it is field-independent for YBCO(6.35) (Tc = 10 K). These results suggest that YBCO samples with x ~ 0.5 exhibit incommensurate magnetic order in the high fields used for the recent quantum oscillation experiments on this system, which likely induces a reconstruction of the Fermi surface. We present neutron spin-echo measurements (with energy resolution ~ 1 micro-eV) for T > 0 that demonstrate a continuous thermal broadening of the incommensurate magnetic Bragg reflections into a quasielastic peak centered at excitation energy E = 0, consistent with the zero-temperature transition expected for a two-dimensional spin system with full spin-rotation symmetry. Measurements on YBCO(6.45) with a triple-axis spectrometer (with energy resolution ~ 100 micro-eV) yield a crossover temperature T_SDW ~ 30 K for the onset of quasi-static magnetic order. Upon further heating, the wavevector characterizing low-energy spin excitations approaches the commensurate antiferromagnetic wave vector, and the incommensurability vanishes in an order-parameter-like fashion at an "electronic liquid-crystal" onset temperature T_ELC ~ 150 K. Both T_SDW and T_ELC increase continuously as the Mott-insulating phase is approached with decreasing doping level., Comment: to appear in a special issue on "Fermiology of Cuprates" of the New Journal of Physics

We study the symmetry of spin excitation spectra in 122-ferropnictide superconductors by comparing the results of first-principles calculations with inelastic neutron scattering (INS) measurements on BaFe1.85Co0.15As2 and BaFe1.91Ni0.09As2 samples that exhibit neither static magnetic phases nor structural phase transitions. In both the normal and superconducting (SC) states, the spectrum lacks the 42/m screw symmetry around the (1/2 1/2 L) axis that is implied by the I4/mmm space group. This is manifest both in the in-plane anisotropy of the normal- and SC-state spin dynamics and in the out-of-plane dispersion of the spin-resonance mode. We show that this effect originates from the higher symmetry of the magnetic Fe sublattice with respect to the crystal itself, hence the INS signal inherits the symmetry of the unfolded Brillouin zone (BZ) of the Fe sublattice. The in-plane anisotropy is temperature-independent and can be qualitatively reproduced in normal-state density-functional-theory calculations without invoking a symmetry-broken ("nematic") ground state that was previously proposed as an explanation for this effect. Below the SC transition, the energy of the magnetic resonant mode Er, as well as its intensity and the SC spin gap inherit the normal-state intensity modulation along the out-of-plane direction L with a period twice larger than expected from the body-centered-tetragonal BZ symmetry. The amplitude of this modulation decreases at higher doping, providing an analogy to the splitting between even and odd resonant modes in bilayer cuprates. Combining our and previous data, we show that at odd L a universal linear relationship Er=4.3*kB*Tc holds for all studied Fe-based superconductors, independent of their carrier type. Its validity down to the lowest doping levels is consistent with weaker electron correlations in ferropnictides as compared to the underdoped cuprates., Comment: To be published in Phys. Rev. B. 18 pages, 14 figures, including one interactive figure. References updated and supplied with hyperlinks (v3); Fig. 3 added with an interactive comparison of different Brillouin zones, introduction extended (v2)

Microwave absorption measurements in magnetic fields from zero up to 16 T were used to determine the temperature range of superconducting fluctuations above the superconducting critical temperature T_c in YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-\delta}. Measurements were performed on deeply underdoped, slightly underdoped, and overdoped single crystals. The temperature range of the superconducting fluctuations above T_c is determined by an experimental method which is free from arbitrary assumptions about subtracting the nonsuperconducting contributions to the total measured signal, and/or theoretical models to extract the unknown parameters. The superconducting fluctuations are detected in the ab-plane, and c-axis conductivity, by identifying the onset temperature T'. Within the sensitivity of the method, this fluctuation regime is found only within a fairly narrow region above T_c. Its width increases from 7 K in the overdoped sample (T_c = 89 K), to at most 23 K in the deeply underdoped sample (T_c = 57 K), so that T' falls well below the pseudogap temperature T*. Implications of these findings are discussed in the context of other experimental probes of superconducting fluctuations in the cuprates.

We report an inelastic-neutron-scattering and muon-spin-relaxation study of the effect of 2% spinless (Zn) impurities on the magnetic order and dynamics of YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.6}$, an underdoped high-temperature superconductor that exhibits a prominent spin-pseudogap in its normal state. Zn substitution induces static magnetic order at low temperatures and triggers a large-scale spectral-weight redistribution from the magnetic resonant mode at 38 meV into uniaxial, incommensurate spin excitations with energies well below the spin-pseudogap. These observations indicate a competition between incommensurate magnetic order and superconductivity close to a quantum critical point. Comparison to prior data on La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_{4}$ suggests that this behavior is universal for the layered copper oxides and analogous to impurity-induced magnetic order in one-dimensional quantum magnets.

The proximity of superconductivity and antiferromagnetism in the phase diagram of iron arsenides, the apparently weak electron-phonon coupling and the "resonance peak" in the superconducting spin excitation spectrum have fostered the hypothesis of magnetically mediated Cooper pairing. However, since most theories of superconductivity are based on a pairing boson of sufficient spectral weight in the normal state, detailed knowledge of the spin excitation spectrum above the superconducting transition temperature Tc is required to assess the viability of this hypothesis. Using inelastic neutron scattering we have studied the spin excitations in optimally doped BaFe1.85Co0.15As2 (Tc = 25 K) over a wide range of temperatures and energies. We present the results in absolute units and find that the normal state spectrum carries a weight comparable to underdoped cuprates. In contrast to cuprates, however, the spectrum agrees well with predictions of the theory of nearly antiferromagnetic metals, without complications arising from a pseudogap or competing incommensurate spin-modulated phases. We also show that the temperature evolution of the resonance energy follows the superconducting energy gap, as expected from conventional Fermi-liquid approaches. Our observations point to a surprisingly simple theoretical description of the spin dynamics in the iron arsenides and provide a solid foundation for models of magnetically mediated superconductivity., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, and an animation

We present x-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) and neutron diffraction measurements on the slightly underdoped iron pnictide superconductor Ba(1-x)K(x)Fe2As2, Tc = 32K. Below the magnetic transition temperature Tm = 70K, both techniques show an additional broadening of the nuclear Bragg peaks, suggesting a weak structural phase transition. However, macroscopically the system does not break its tetragonal symmetry down to 15 K. Instead, XRPD patterns at low temperature reveal an increase of the anisotropic microstrain proportionally in all directions. We associate this effect with the electronic phase separation, previously observed in the same material, and with the effect of lattice softening below the magnetic phase transition. We employ density functional theory to evaluate the distribution of atomic positions in the presence of dopant atoms both in the normal and magnetic states, and to quantify the lattice softening, showing that it can account for a major part of the observed increase of the microstrain., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

We present a neutron-scattering study of the static and dynamic spin correlations in the underdoped high-temperature superconductor YBa(2)Cu(3)O(6.45) in magnetic fields up to 15 T. The field strongly enhances static incommensurate magnetic order at low temperatures and induces a spectral-weight shift in the magnetic-excitation spectrum. A reconstruction of the Fermi surface driven by the field-enhanced magnetic superstructure may thus be responsible for the unusual Fermi surface topology revealed by recent quantum-oscillation experiments., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Version 2 as accepted by PRL, contains updated reference list and improved comparison to similar effects in the La-214 system

Here we present a combined study of the slightly underdoped novel pnictide superconductor Ba(1-x)K(x)Fe(2)As(2) by means of X-ray powder diffraction, neutron scattering, muon spin rotation (muSR), and magnetic force microscopy (MFM). Commensurate static magnetic order sets in below Tm ~ 70 K as inferred from the emergence of the magnetic (1 0 -3) reflection in the neutron scattering data and from the observation of damped oscillations in the zero-field-muSR asymmetry. Transverse-field muSR below Tc shows a coexistence of magnetically ordered and non-magnetic states, which is also confirmed by MFM imaging. We explain such coexistence by electronic phase separation into antiferromagnetic and superconducting/normal state regions on a lateral scale of several tens of nanometers. Our findings indicate that such mesoscopic phase separation can be considered an intrinsic property of some iron pnictide superconductors.

The distribution of valence electrons in metals usually follows the symmetry of an ionic lattice. Modulations of this distribution often occur when those electrons are not stable with respect to a new electronic order, such as spin or charge density waves. Electron density waves have been observed in many families of superconductors[1-3], and are often considered to be essential for superconductivity to exist[4]. Recent measurements[5-9] seem to show that the properties of the iron pnictides[10, 11] are in good agreement with band structure calculations that do not include additional ordering, implying no relation between density waves and superconductivity in those materials[12-15]. Here we report that the electronic structure of Ba1-xKxFe2As2 is in sharp disagreement with those band structure calculations[12-15], instead revealing a reconstruction characterized by a (pi,pi) wave vector. This electronic order coexists with superconductivity and persists up to room temperature.

Electronic phases with symmetry properties matching those of conventional liquid crystals have recently been discovered in transport experiments on semiconductor heterostructures and metal oxides at milli-Kelvin temperatures. We report the spontaneous onset of a onedimensional, incommensurate modulation of the spin system in the high-temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3O6.45 upon cooling below ~150 K, while static magnetic order is absent above 2 K. The evolution of this modulation with temperature and doping parallels that of the in-plane anisotropy of the resistivity, indicating an electronic nematic phase that is stable over a wide temperature range. The results suggest that soft spin fluctuations are a microscopic route towards electronic liquid crystals, and nematic order can coexist with high-temperature superconductivity in underdoped cuprates., Comment: 10 pages, 4+2 figures, includes a "materials and methods" as well as a "supporting text" section