Spin and Charge Degrees of Freedom in the Copper Oxide Superconductor
La2-xBaxCuO4
Sarah Dunsiger, McMaster University
Magnetism plays a central role in much of condensed matter physics and
its applications. A wide variety of phenomena are directly or indirectly
related to magnetism: metal-insulator transitions, magnetic or
structural phase transitions or superconductivity for example.
The transition metal oxides are known to be superb examples of this
diversity. The evolution of their magnetic properties may be tuned
in a controllable way with doping, chemical composition, pressure,
magnetic field or temperature. However, a complete description of
these highly complex systems remains one of the important unsolved
problems in condensed matter physics.
The interplay between magnetism and superconductivity is a central
issue in the study of the high Tc cuprates. The first
to be discovered, the Bednorz-Müller materials have been much
less extensively studied due to the difficulty of growing single
crystals. I will describe our recent neutron scattering studies of
a large single crystal of
La1.89Ba0.11CuO4, which shows
elastic and inelastic magnetic scattering at incommensurate
wavevectors, as well as corresponding elastic charge scattering.
I will discuss these recent results in the context of what is known
to occur in other high Tc materials.
Back to Seminar Home Page
Last modified 04-April-2005 by website owner: NCNR (attn: )
