Journal Article

Contrasting c -axis and in-plane uniaxial stress effects on superconductivity and stripe order in La 1.885 Ba 0.115 CuO 4

Luetkens, Hubertus, Grinenko, Vadim, Maetsu, Ikuya, Müller, Markus, Tranquada, John M, Khasanov, Rustem, Guguchia, Zurab, Simutis, Gediminas, Gerguri, Orion, Gopakumar, Hrishikesh, Sarkar, Rajib, Graham, Jennifer N, Adachi, Tadashi, Islam, Shams Sohel, Janoschek, Marc, Klauss, Hans Henning, Král, Petr, Sazgari, Vahid, Shiroka, Toni

2025

Overview

The cuprate superconductor La Ba CuO (LBCO) near  = 0.125 is a striking example of intertwined electronic orders, where 3D superconductivity is anomalously suppressed, allowing spin and charge stripe order to develop. Understanding this interplay remains a key challenge in cuprates, highlighting the necessity of external tuning for deeper insight. While in-plane uniaxial stress enhances superconductivity and suppresses stripe order, the effects of -axis compression remains largely unexplored. Here, we use muon spin rotation ( SR) and AC susceptibility with an in situ piezoelectric stress device to investigate the spin-stripe order and superconductivity in LBCO-0.115 under -axis compression. The measurements reveal a gradual suppression of the superconducting transition temperature ( ) with increasing -axis stress, in stark contrast to the strong enhancement observed under in-plane stress. We further show that while in-plane stress rapidly reduces both the magnetic volume fraction ( ) and the spin-stripe ordering temperature ( ), -axis compression has no effect, with and exhibiting an almost unchanged behavior up to the highest applied stress of 0.21 GPa. These findings demonstrate a strong anisotropy in stress response.