Ferro-orbitally ordered stripes in systems with alternating orbital order

Phys Rev Lett. 2010 May 21;104(20):206401. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.206401. Epub 2010 May 18.

Abstract

We establish a novel mechanism of stripe formation in doped systems with alternating t(2g) orbital order--the stripe takes the form of a ferro-orbitally ordered domain wall separating domains with staggered order and allowing for deconfined motion of holes along the stripe. At a finite level of hole concentration this gives rise to the stability of this solitonic type of stripes, while we show that the phase change of the staggered order by π plays a minor role in orbitally ordered systems. These results shed new light on the physics of doped materials in which orbital degeneracy is present.