Electronic liquid crystal state in a strongly underdoped high-temperature superconductor

Liquid crystals are states of matter without static crystalline order that break the rotational symmetry of free space while at least partially preserving its translational symmetry. Highly correlated electronic phases with symmetry properties analogous to those of conventional liquid crystals have been theoretically predicted (Kivelson et al., Nature 393, 550) and recently discovered in the layered bulk transition metal oxide Sr3Ru2O7 (Borzi et al., Science 315, 214). In both cases, however, these phases are stable only at milli-Kelvin temperatures and in high magnetic fields, and have thus far only been probed by transport measurements. After briefly summarizing our work on YBCO6.6 (Hinkov et al., Nature Physics 3, 780), we report the spontaneous onset of a strong one-dimensional, incommensurate modulation of the spin system in the underdoped high-temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3O6.45 upon cooling below 150 K, while muon-spin-relaxation experiments on the same sample demonstrate that static magnetic order is absent down to temperatures of at least 2 K. The symmetry properties of the spin system thus match those of a nematic liquid crystal over a wide temperature range. Soft spin fluctuations are thus a microscopic route towards the formation of electronic nematic phases, which can coexist with high-Tc superconductivity