Abstract
One of the main challenges in understanding high-Tc superconductivity
is to disentangle the rich variety of states of matter that may coexist,
cooperate or compete with d-wave superconductivity. At centre stage
is the pseudogap phase, which occupies a large portion of the cuprate
phase diagram surrounding the superconducting dome. Using scanning
tunnelling microscopy, we find that a static, non-dispersive, 'checkerboard'-like
electronic modulation exists in a broad regime of the cuprate phase
diagram and exhibits strong doping dependence. The continuous increase
of checkerboard periodicity with hole density strongly suggests that
the checkerboard originates from charge-density-wave formation in
the antinodal region of the cuprate Fermi surface. These results
reveal a coherent picture for static electronic orderings in the
cuprates and shed important new light on the nature of the pseudogap
phase.
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