Revisiting Cu 63 NMR evidence for charge order in superconducting La 1.885 Sr 0.115 CuO 4
Here, the presence of charge and spin stripe order in the La 2 CuO 4 -based family of superconductors continues to lead to new insight on the unusual ground-state properties of high- T c cuprates. Soon after the discovery of charge stripe order at T charge ≃65 K in Nd 3+ co-doped La 1.48 Nd 0.4 Sr 0.12 CuO 4 ( T c ≃6 K), Hunt et al. demonstrated that La 1.48 Nd 0.4 Sr 0.12 CuO 4 and superconducting La 2–x Sr x CuO 4 with x~1/8( T c ≃30 K) share nearly identical NMR anomalies near Tcharge of the former. Their inevitable conclusion that La 1.885 Sr 0.115 CuO 4 also undergoes charge order at a comparable temperature became controversial, because diffraction measurements at the time were unable to detect Bragg peaks associated with charge order. Recent advances in x-ray diffraction techniques finally led to definitive confirmations of the charge order Bragg peaks in La 1.885 Sr 0.115 CuO 4 with an onset at as high as T charge ≃80 K. Meanwhile, improved instrumental technology has enabled routine NMR measurements that were not feasible two decades ago. Motivated by these new developments, we revisit the charge order transition of a La 1.885 Sr 0.115 CuO 4 single crystal based on 63 Cu NMR techniques. We demonstrate that 63 Cu NMR properties of the nuclear spin I z =–1/2 to +1/2 central transition below T charge exhibit unprecedentedly strong dependence on the measurement time scale set by the separation time τ between the 90° and 180° radio-frequency pulses; a new kind of anomalous, very broad winglike 63Cu NMR signals gradually emerge below T charge only for extremely short τ≲4μs, while the spectral weight I Normal of the normal NMR signals is progressively wiped out. The NMR linewidth and relaxation rates depend strongly on τ below T charge , and their enhancement in the charge ordered state indicates that charge order turns on strong but inhomogeneous growth of Cu spin-spin correlations.