Muon-spin-relaxation study of the effect of nonmagnetic impurities on the Cu-spin fluctuations in La2-xSrxCu1-yZnyO4 around x=0.115 -: art. no. 180516

Zero-field muon-spin-relaxation (muSR) measurements have been carried out in order to investigate the effect of nonmagnetic impurities on the dynamics of the Cu-spin fluctuations in the Zn-substituted La2-xSrxCu1-yZnyO4 with x=0.115 and 0.13, changing y from 0 to 0.10. A long-range-ordered state of Cu spins, which is observed in the Zn-free sample with x=0.115, disappears in the Zn-free sample with x=0.13, but appears again in the Zn-substituted samples with x=0.13 for ygreater than or equal to0.0075. The long-range-ordered state disappears for y>0.03 for both values of x, so that the Cu spins are in a paramagnetic state. The present muSR results support the suggestion that a small amount of nonmagnetic impurities produces a pinning of the dynamical stripe correlations of spins and holes and make them statically stabilized, while a large amount of nonmagnetic impurities destroy the stripe correlations themselves.