Abstract
One of the main challenges in understanding high-Tc superconductivity is to disentangle the rich variety of states of matter that may coexist, cooperate or compete with d-wave superconductivity. At centre stage is the pseudogap phase, which occupies a large portion of the cuprate phase diagram surrounding the superconducting dome. Using scanning tunnelling microscopy, we find that a static, non-dispersive, 'checkerboard'-like electronic modulation exists in a broad regime of the cuprate phase diagram and exhibits strong doping dependence. The continuous increase of checkerboard periodicity with hole density strongly suggests that the checkerboard originates from charge-density-wave formation in the antinodal region of the cuprate Fermi surface. These results reveal a coherent picture for static electronic orderings in the cuprates and shed important new light on the nature of the pseudogap phase.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 696-699 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | Nature Physics |
Volume | 4 |
Issue number | 9 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 2008 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General Physics and Astronomy