Scattering from incipient stripe order in the high-temperature superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta

Recently, we have used spectroscopic mapping with a scanning tunneling microscope to probe modulations of the electronic density of states in single crystals of the high-temperature superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta (Bi-2212) as a function of temperature [C. V. Parker et al., Nature (London) 468, 677 (2010)]. These measurements showed Cu-O bond-oriented modulations that form below the pseudogap temperature with a temperature-dependent energy dispersion displaying different behaviors in the superconducting and pseudogap states. Here we demonstrate that quasiparticle scattering from impurities does not capture the experimentally observed energy and temperature dependence of these modulations. Instead, a model of scattering of quasiparticles from short-range stripe order, with periodicity near four lattice constants (4a), reproduces the experimentally observed energy dispersion of the bond-oriented modulations and its temperature dependence across the superconducting critical temperature T-c. The present study confirms the existence of short-range stripe order in Bi-2212