Nature and impact of stripe freezing in La$_{1.67}$Sr$_{0.33}$NiO$_4$

Abstract

La$_{1.67}$Sr$_{0.33}$NiO$_4$ develops charge and spin stripe orders at temperatures of roughly 200 K, with modulation wave vectors that are temperature independent. Various probes of spin and charge response have provided independent evidence for some sort of change below $\sim50$ K. In combination with a new set of neutron scattering measurements, we propose a unified interpretation of all of these observations in terms of a freezing of Ni-centered charges stripes, together with a glassy ordering of the spin stripes that shows up in neutron scattering as a slight rotation of the average spin direction.