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  • Ground State of the Pseudog...
    Valla, T; Fedorov, A.V; Lee, Jinho; Davis, J.C; Gu, G.D

    Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science), 12/2006, Volume: 314, Issue: 5807
    Journal Article

    We present studies of the electronic structure of La₂₋xBaxCuO₄, a system where the superconductivity is strongly suppressed as static spin and charge orders or "stripes" develop near the doping level of x = fraction one-eighth. Using angle-resolved photoemission and scanning tunneling microscopy, we detect an energy gap at the Fermi surface with magnitude consistent with d-wave symmetry and with linear density of states, vanishing only at four nodal points, even when superconductivity disappears at x = fraction one-eighth. Thus, the nonsuperconducting, striped state at x = fraction one-eighth is consistent with a phase-incoherent d-wave superconductor whose Cooper pairs form spin-charge-ordered structures instead of becoming superconducting.