Microscopy from Scientific Research

Topograph of the BiO surface of Bi 2 Sr 2 CaCu 2 O 8+ x ( V S = -750 mV: I S =25 pA). The bulk-crystal supermodulation, a quasi-periodic modulation along the (1, 1) direction, is clearly evident. It is at 45 to and therefore is the mirror plane between the x and y axes, as always 26 . Any distinctions between the states of oxygen orbitals along the x and y axes are not influenced by supermodulation for this symmetry reason, as empirically demonstrated in Methods and Extended Data Fig. 9 . Therefore, supermodulation has no discernable influence on the intra-unit-cell symmetry breaking of δ ε ( r ).

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