Illustration: Yen Strandqvist
The paper “Restored strange metal phase through suppression of charge density waves in underdoped YBa2Cu3O7–δ” from the Chalmers University of Technology group is now available in Science Magazine. The research has been led by the Chalmers group, in collaboration with researchers from Politecnico di Milano, University La Sapienza, Brandenburg University of Technology and the European Synchrotron facility (ESRF). Congratulations to the Teams!
The presented research focuses on understanding and controlling the enigmatic state called ‘strange metal’, appearing in high temperature superconductors at temperatures above the superconducting transition.
The main result of the paper is new evidence of an intimate connection between the strange metal state and a “directional” local charge modulation in the conducting electrons called charge density waves (CDW). More specifically, the strange metal state is suppressed by the appearance of these charge modulations, providing valuable insights into the possible mechanism behind this enigmatic state. The experiment also shows that CDW can be controlled by applying strain to the material, leading to a novel technique of using strain to turn the strange metal state on or off. This is the first step towards a systematic study of ultra quantum matter in the lab, where strain control can be used to manipulate this new class of quantum materials.
Oxide nanoelectromechanical systems can be a potential tool to reversibly control strain and thus manipulate the ground state such (oxide) quantum materials.
Read more about our paper here.
Simone Cuccurullo received the Master degree diploma in Physical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano with a thesis work on new magnetometers combining MEMS and magnetic elements. 
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N.828784.