Freezing of a stripe liquid

Phys Rev Lett. 2002 Mar 25;88(12):126401. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.126401. Epub 2002 Mar 6.

Abstract

The existence of a stripe-liquid phase in a layered nickelate, La(1.725)Sr(0.275)NiO(4), is demonstrated through neutron scattering measurements. We show that incommensurate magnetic fluctuations evolve continuously through the charge-ordering temperature, although an abrupt decrease in the effective damping energy is observed on cooling through the transition. The energy and momentum dependence of the magnetic scattering are parametrized with a damped-harmonic-oscillator model describing overdamped spin waves in the antiferromagnetic domains defined instantaneously by charge stripes.