Transport properties of stripe-ordered high Tc cuprates

Transport measurements provide important characterizations of the nature of stripe order in the cuprates. Initial studies of systems such as La1.6-xNd0.4SrxCuO4 demonstrated the strong anisotropy between in-plane and c-axis resistivities, but also suggested that stripe order results in a tendency towards insulating behavior within the planes at low temperature. More recent work on La2-xBaxCuO4 with x = 1/ 8 has revealed the occurrence of quasi-two-dimensional superconductivity that onsets with spin-stripe order. The suppression of three-dimensional superconductivity indicates a frustration of the interlayer Josephson coupling, motivating a proposal that superconductivity and stripe order are intertwined in a pair-density-wave state. Complementary characterizations of the low-energy states near the Fermi level are provided by measurements of the Hall and Nernst effects, each revealing intriguing signatures of stripe correlations and ordering. We review and discuss this work. (C) 2012 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.