Evidence for monoclinic distortion in the ground state phase of underdoped La1.95Sr0.05CuO4: A single crystal neutron diffraction study

Anar Singh, Jürg Schefer, Ravi Sura, Kazimierz Conder, Romain F. Sibille, Monica Ceretti, Matthias Frontzek, Werner Paulus

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Abstract

The existing controversy about the symmetry of the crystal structure of the ground state of the critical doped La1.95Sr0.05CuO4 has been resolved by analyzing the single crystal neutron diffraction data collected between 5 and 730 K. We observed small but significant intensities for "forbidden" reflections given by extinction rules of the orthorhombic Bmab space group at low temperatures. A careful investigation of neutron diffraction data reveals that the crystal structure of La1.95Sr0.05CuO4 at 5 K is monoclinic with B2/m (2/m 1 1) space group. The monoclinic structure emerges from the orthorhombic structure in a continuous way; however, the structure is stable below ∼120 K which agrees with other observed phenomena. Our results on symmetry changes are crucial for the interpretation of physical properties also in other high temperature superconductors with similar structures.

Original languageEnglish
Article number123902
JournalJournal of Applied Physics
Volume119
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 28 2016

Funding

This work was funded with the project SECTOR (ANR-14-CE36-0006-01/SNF 200021L-157131/1). R.S. has been supported by the grants of Centre National de la Recherché Scientific (CNRS)/France and by Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI)/Switzerland. A.S. acknowledges support from Department of Science and Technology (DST), India under INSPIRE faculty scheme.

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