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Originally published in Science Express on 8 February 2007
Science 9 March 2007:
Vol. 315. no. 5817, pp. 1380 - 1385
DOI: 10.1126/science.1138584
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Research Articles

An Intrinsic Bond-Centered Electronic Glass with Unidirectional Domains in Underdoped Cuprates

Y. Kohsaka,1 C. Taylor,1 K. Fujita,1,2 A. Schmidt,1 C. Lupien,3 T. Hanaguri,4 M. Azuma,5 M. Takano,5 H. Eisaki,6 H. Takagi,2,4 S. Uchida,2,7 J. C. Davis1,8*

Removing electrons from the CuO2 plane of cuprates alters the electronic correlations sufficiently to produce high-temperature superconductivity. Associated with these changes are spectral-weight transfers from the high-energy states of the insulator to low energies. In theory, these should be detectable as an imbalance between the tunneling rate for electron injection and extraction—a tunneling asymmetry. We introduce atomic-resolution tunneling-asymmetry imaging, finding virtually identical phenomena in two lightly hole-doped cuprates: Ca1.88Na0.12CuO2Cl2 and Bi2Sr2Dy0.2Ca0.8Cu2O8+{delta}. Intense spatial variations in tunneling asymmetry occur primarily at the planar oxygen sites; their spatial arrangement forms a Cu-O-Cu bond-centered electronic pattern without long-range order but with 4a0-wide unidirectional electronic domains dispersed throughout (a0: the Cu-O-Cu distance). The emerging picture is then of a partial hole localization within an intrinsic electronic glass evolving, at higher hole densities, into complete delocalization and highest-temperature superconductivity.

1 Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics, Department of Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
2 Department of Advanced Materials Science, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8651, Japan.
3 Département de Physique, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC J1K 2R1, Canada.
4 Magnetic Materials Laboratory, RIKEN, Wako, Saitama 351-0198, Japan.
5 Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, Uji, Kyoto 601-0011, Japan.
6 National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8568, Japan.
7 Department of Physics, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.
8 Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jcdavis{at}ccmr.cornell.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)