Spontaneous breaking of time-reversal symmetry in the pseudogap state of a high-Tc superconductor.
A change in 'symmetry' is often observed when matter undergoes a phase transition-the symmetry is said to be spontaneously broken. The transition made by underdoped high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconductors is unusual, in that it is not a mean-field transition as seen in other superconductors. Rather, there is a region in the phase diagram above the superconducting transition temperature Tc (where phase coherence and superconductivity begin) but below a characteristic temperature T* where a 'pseudogap' appears in the spectrum of electronic excitations. It is therefore important to establish if T* is just a cross-over temperature arising from fluctuations in the order parameter that will establish superconductivity at Tc (refs 3, 4), or if it marks a phase transition where symmetry is spontaneously broken. Here we report that, for a material in the pseudogap state, left-circularly polarized photons give a different photocurrent from right-circularly polarized photons. This shows that time-reversal symmetry is spontaneously broken below T*, which therefore corresponds to a phase transition.
Kaminski
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Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60607, USA.
Rosenkranz
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Fretwell
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Campuzano
J C
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Li
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Raffy
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Cullen
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You
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Olson
C G
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Varma
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Höchst
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