Fluctuating stripes at the onset of the pseudogap in the high-Tc superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x

Fluctuating stripes and pseudogap onset A long-standing question in the superconductor field is the nature of the interplay between the pseudogap, which is generic to all hole-doped copper oxide superconductors, and stripes, whose static form occurs in only one family of copper oxides over a narrow range of the phase diagram. Parker et al. report observations of the spatial reorganization of electronic states with the onset of the pseudogap state at T* in the high-temperature superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x using scanning tunnelling microscopy. They find that the onset of the pseudogap phase coincides with the appearance of electronic patterns that have the predicted characteristics of fluctuating stripes. The experiments indicate that stripes are a consequence of pseudogap behaviour rather than its cause.