Incommensurate magnetic order and dynamics induced by spinless impurities in YBa(2)Cu(3)O(6.6)

Phys Rev Lett. 2010 Jul 16;105(3):037207. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.037207. Epub 2010 Jul 16.

Abstract

We report an inelastic-neutron-scattering and muon-spin-relaxation study of the effect of 2% spinless (Zn) impurities on the magnetic order and dynamics of YBa(2)Cu(3)O(6.6), an underdoped high-temperature superconductor that exhibits a prominent spin pseudogap in its normal state. Zn substitution induces static magnetic order at low temperatures and triggers a large-scale spectral-weight redistribution from the magnetic resonant mode at 38 meV into uniaxial, incommensurate spin excitations with energies well below the spin pseudogap. These observations indicate a competition between incommensurate magnetic order and superconductivity close to a quantum critical point. Comparison to prior data on La(2-x)Sr(x)CuO(4) suggests that this behavior is universal for the layered copper oxides and analogous to impurity-induced magnetic order in one-dimensional quantum magnets.