Magneto-optical Signatures of a Cascade of Transitions in La 1.875Ba 0.125CuO 4

Recent experiments on the original cuprate high temperature superconductor, La{sub 2-x}Ba{sub x}CuO{sub 4}, revealed a remarkable sequence of phase transitions. Here we investigate such crystals with polar Kerr effect which is sensitive to time-reversal-symmetry breaking. Concurrent birefringence me...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2012-09, Vol.109 (14)
Main Authors: Karapetyan, Hovnatan, Hucker, M., Gu, G.D., Tranquada, J.M., Fejer, M.M., Xia, Jing, Kapitulnik, A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
BIREFRINGENCE
CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS
CUPRATES
KERR EFFECT
MATSCI
SYMMETRY
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Summary:Recent experiments on the original cuprate high temperature superconductor, La{sub 2-x}Ba{sub x}CuO{sub 4}, revealed a remarkable sequence of phase transitions. Here we investigate such crystals with polar Kerr effect which is sensitive to time-reversal-symmetry breaking. Concurrent birefringence measurements accurately locate the structural phase transitions from high-temperature tetragonal to low temperature orthorhombic, and then to lower temperature tetragonal, at which temperature a strong Kerr signal onsets. Hysteretic behavior of the Kerr signal suggests that time-reversal symmetry is already broken well above room temperature, an effect that was previously observed in high quality YBa{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub 6+x} crystals.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.147001