# 𝑎⁢𝑏-plane resistivity and possible charge stripe ordering in strongly underdoped La2-xSrxCuO4 single crystals

## Abstract

We have measured the $`ab`$-plane resistivity of La<sub>2-x</sub>Sr<sub>x</sub>CuO<sub>4</sub> single crystals with small Sr content (x=0.052$`÷`$0.075) between 4.2 and $`300`$K by using the AC Van der Pauw technique. As recently suggested by Ichikawa et al., the deviation from the linearity of the $`\rho _{\mathrm{ab}}(T)`$ curve starting at a temperature T<sub>ch</sub> can be interpreted as due to a progressive slowing down of the fluctuations of pre-formed charge stripes. An electronic transition of the stripes to a more ordered phase could instead be responsible for some very sharp anomalies present in the $`\rho _{\mathrm{ab}}(T)`$ of superconducting samples just above $`T_\mathrm{c}`$.

There is a growing experimental evidence  for the existence of charge stripes in La<sub>2-x</sub>Sr<sub>x</sub>CuO<sub>4</sub> (LSCO) and the related compounds obtained by substitutions. Successive ordering transitions of these stripes, which seem to have a metallic character , possibly occur when the temperature is lowered. One would expect that, in superconducting samples, the phase transitions of the stripes occurring above $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ leave a mark on the electrical resistivity . In the present work, we study the in-plane resistivity $`\rho _{\mathrm{ab}}(T)`$ of strongly underdoped single crystals of LSCO, which exhibits, besides the usual features previously observed, an anomalous peak just above $`T_\mathrm{c}`$. We relate it to an electronic transition of the stripes to a more ordered phase .

We carefully investigated the temperature dependence of the $`ab`$-plane resistivity of LSCO single crystals with small Sr doping ($`0.052x0.075`$). The crystals, having typical dimensions of about $`1\times 1\times 0.3`$mm<sup>3</sup>, were grown by slowly cooling a non-stoichiometric melt. The chemical composition of every crystal was determined by means of EDS microprobe analysis and only crystals having a homogeneous Sr content were selected. In order to increase the precision of the $`ab`$-plane measure, we used an AC version of the standard four-probes eight-measures Van der Pauw method injecting in the crystals AC currents of $`100÷300\mu `$A at $`133`$Hz. Details on the experimental technique are given elsewhere . Fig. 1 shows the results. The crystals with $`x=0.052`$ are not superconducting and show a low-temperature semiconducting-like behaviour of the resistivity, apart from an anomalous local maximum at about $`25`$K (curve *a* in Fig. 1). The crystals with $`x=0.06`$ and 0.075 show well-defined superconducting transitions with midpoints at $`T_\mathrm{c}=6.7`$K ($`\mathrm{\Delta }T_\mathrm{c}=0.6`$K) and $`T_\mathrm{c}=8.9`$K ($`\mathrm{\Delta }T_\mathrm{c}=2.2`$K), respectively (curves *b* and *c*). However, very sharp anomalous peaks are present at temperatures about $`2`$K greater than $`T_\mathrm{c}`$. The inset of Fig. 1 shows these peaks in greater detail. No anomalies are present in the AC susceptibility of the same crystals.

We first discuss the general behaviour of the resistivity curves. The $`\rho _{\mathrm{ab}}(T)`$ at $`150<T<300`$K is almost perfectly linear. We then fitted the resistivity in this region by using a linear model: $`\rho _{\mathrm{ab}}(T)=\alpha T+\beta `$. Following a recent paper of Ichikawa et al. , we calculated the normalized resistivity $`\rho _{\mathrm{ab}}(T)/(\alpha T+\beta )`$. The results for the superconducting samples are shown in Fig. 2. In Ref. 3 the deviations of the $`\rho _{\mathrm{ab}}(T)`$ from the linearity exceeding a certain threshold (dependent on $`x`$) have been associated to the localization of pre-formed stripes, which occurs at a temperature $`T_{\mathrm{ch}}`$ independently determined by Cu NQR measurements . This correlation has been observed in Nd-substituted crystals but also in crystals without Nd, having $`x`$=0.10 and $`x`$=0.12 . Following the same approach, we obtained the stripe localization temperatures $`T_{\mathrm{ch}}`$ in our samples by crossing the normalized resistivities with appropriate thresholds extrapolated from the data of Ref. 3. Solid circles on curves *a* and *b* of Fig. 2 show the results of this operation. The inset of Fig. 2 shows the temperatures $`T_{\mathrm{ch}}`$ of our crystals versus the Sr-doping (solid squares): they are in excellent agreement with $`T_{\mathrm{ch}}`$ values determined by means of NQR measurement in LSCO crystals with different doping  (open squares). A further decrease of the temperature below $`T_{\mathrm{ch}}`$ produces a continuous slowing-down of the stripe motion: stripes start to be pinned (by defects or by intrinsic low doping) and $`\rho _{\mathrm{ab}}(T)`$ shows an upturn up to a peak followed by the region dominated by superconducting fluctuations.

One could argue that the small peaks at $`T_\mathrm{o}`$ about 2 K above $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ (see the inset of Fig. 2) may be due to measurement errors, $`\rho _\mathrm{c}`$ interferences in $`\rho _{\mathrm{ab}}`$, or crystal inhomogeneities (i.e. parts of the crystal are not superconducting and contribute to $`\rho _{\mathrm{ab}}`$ with a semiconducting-like term just above $`T_\mathrm{c}`$). We can reply to these objections that (i) the Van der Pauw’s four-probes AC technique provides four resistance measures and all of them show very reproducible peaks at $`T_\mathrm{o}`$; (ii) a detailed data analysis suggests that the resistivity contribution of *c*-axis terms or different-doping islands is unable to give peaks as those observed . Another possible explanation for their origin could be a *structural* low-temperature transition, similar to that observed at higher temperature in Nd-substituted samples , but there are no other evidences of such a transition near $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ in LSCO.

We speculate that an *electronic* phase transition from a *nematic* stripe phase to a more ordered *smectic* one (“stripe glass”)  is responsible for the anomalies near $`T_\mathrm{c}`$. This scenario is supported by theoretical arguments  and experimental analogies with the behaviour of some metal dichalcogenides at the charge-density wave transition and it is consistent with the coexistence of cluster spin-glass and superconductivity recently observed below $``$ 5 K in LSCO with $`x=0.06`$ .