Bulk charge stripe order competing with superconductivity in La2-xSrxCuO4 (x=0.12)

Understand

We present a volume-sensitive high-energy x-ray diffraction study of the underdoped cuprate high temperature superconductor La2-xSrxCuO4 (x = 0.12, Tc=27 K) in applied magnetic field.

• Bulk short-range charge stripe order with propagation vector q_ch = (0.231, 0, 0.5) is demonstrated to exist below T_ch = 85(10) K and shown to compete with superconductivity.
• We argue that bulk charge ordering arises from fluctuating stripes that become pinned near boundaries between orthorhombic twin domains.