Mapping the structural domains associated with the suppression of the 3D superconducting state in the high-Tc layered cuprate

Competition exists in the high temperature cuprate superconductors between the superconducting (SC), pseudogap and ordered charge density wave (CDW) states. A key doping level for understanding these competitions has been the 1/8 doping level, where an anomaly in the superconducting dome occurs (e.g., La2- xBaxCuO4), that is concomitant with a first order structural phase transition and is understood to supress 3D superconductivity. However, very recently we have shown that this structural phase transition does not run to completion, suggesting a natural explanation for the persistence of only 2D (in plane) SC at the 1/8 anomaly. We propose to carry out a diffraction resolved tomography experiment on a surrogate system to map out how the structural domains associated with the suppression of the 3D superconducting state percolate.