Novel vortex stripe phase under strong magnetic field in high temperature superconductors

Abstract

The nature of vortex structure in the mixed state of high-temperature superconductors (HTS) is investigated by solving the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations with consideration of competition between antiferromagnetic (AF) and d-wave superconductivity (DSC) orders. By varying the applied magnetic field and temperature, the geometry of vortex structure can take two different forms: conventional vortex lattice (triangular or square), or vortex stripe phases where all the order parameters including spin density wave, charge density wave and superconducting order exhibit stripe-like behavior. This novel vortex stripe phases may show up at low temperature and adjacent to upper critical field H c2. Phase diagram of temperature dependence of H c2 will be presented. Our results may shed light on the understanding of the low-temperature H c2 anomalies in some HTS. New experiments are proposed to test our predictions. © World Scientific Publishing Company.