Pronounced interplay between intrinsic phase-coexistence and octahedral tilt magnitude in hole-doped lanthanum cuprates

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-18574-1

Authors: Jeremiah P. Tidey (University of Warwick) , En-Pei Liu (Tamkang University; National Taiwan University) , Yen-Chung Lai (National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center) , Yu-Chun Chuang (National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center) , Wei-Tin Chen (National Taiwan University; Ministry of Science and Technology (Taiwan)) , Lauren J. Cane (University of Bristol) , Chris Lester (University of Bristol) , Alexander N. D. Petsch (University of Bristol) , Anna Herlihy (Diamond Light Source) , Arkadiy Simonov (ETH Zürich) , Stephen M. Hayden (University of Bristol) , Mark Senn (University of Warwick)
Co-authored by industrial partner: No

Type: Journal Paper
Journal: Scientific Reports , VOL 12

State: Published (Approved)
Published: August 2022
Diamond Proposal Number(s): 27647

Abstract: Definitive understanding of superconductivity and its interplay with structural symmetry in the hole-doped lanthanum cuprates remains elusive. The suppression of superconductivity around 1/8th doping maintains particular focus, often attributed to charge-density waves (CDWs) ordering in the low-temperature tetragonal (LTT) phase. Central to many investigations into this interplay is the thesis that La1.875Ba0.125CuO4 and particularly La1.675Eu0.2Sr0.125CuO4 present model systems of purely LTT structure at low temperature. However, combining single-crystal and high-resolution powder X-ray diffraction, we find these to exhibit significant, intrinsic coexistence of LTT and low-temperature orthorhombic domains, typically associated with superconductivity, even at 10 K. Our two-phase models reveal substantially greater tilting of CuO6 octahedra in the LTT phase, markedly buckling the CuO2 planes. This would couple significantly to band narrowing, potentially indicating a picture of electronically driven phase segregation, reminiscent of optimally doped manganites. These results call for reassessment of many experiments seeking to elucidate structural and electronic interplay at 1/8 doping.

Journal Keywords: Phase transitions and critical phenomena; Solid-state chemistry; Structure of solids and liquids; Superconducting properties and materials; Superconductors

Subject Areas: Materials, Chemistry, Physics


Instruments: I19-Small Molecule Single Crystal Diffraction

Other Facilities: 09A, 19A at Taiwan Photon Source (NSRRC)

Added On: 29/08/2022 08:44

Documents:
s41598-022-18574-1.pdf

Discipline Tags:

Superconductors Quantum Materials Physics Physical Chemistry Hard condensed matter - structures Chemistry Materials Science

Technical Tags:

Diffraction Single Crystal X-ray Diffraction (SXRD)