Magnetic-field-induced charge-stripe order in the high-temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3Oy

Electronic charges introduced in copper-oxide (CuO2) planes generate high-transition-temperature (T-c) superconductivity but, under special circumstances, they can also order into filaments called stripes(1). Whether an underlying tendency towards charge order is present in all copper oxides and whether this has any relationship with superconductivity are, however, two highly controversial issues(2,3). To uncover underlying electronic order, magnetic fields strong enough to destabilize superconductivity can be used. Such experiments, including quantum oscillations(4-6) in YBa2Cu3Oy (an extremely clean copper oxide in which charge order has not until now been observed) have suggested that superconductivity competes with spin, rather than charge, order(7-9). Here we report nuclear magnetic resonance measurements showing that high magnetic fields actually induce charge order, without spin order, in the CuO2 planes of YBa2Cu3Oy. The observed static, unidirectional, modulation of the charge density breaks translational symmetry, thus explaining quantum oscillation results, and we argue that it is most probably the same 4a-periodic modulation as in stripe-ordered copper oxides(1). That it develops only when superconductivity fades away and near the same 1/8 hole doping as in La2-xBaxCuO4 (ref. 1) suggests that charge order, although visibly pinned by CuO chains in YBa2Cu3Oy, is an intrinsic propensity of the superconducting planes of high-T-c copper oxides.