Anisotropic electromagnetic response of lightly doped La2-xSrxCuO4 within the CuO2 planes

Using infrared spectroscopy, we show that spin self-organization in untwinned La2-xSrxCuO4 (LSCO) crystals has profound consequences for the dynamical conductivity sigma(omega). The electronic response of CuO2 planes acquires significant anisotropy in the spin ordered state with enhancement of the conductivity along the direction of the diagonal spin stripes by up to a factor of 2. An examination of the anisotropic response indicates that the diagonal spin texture in weakly doped LSCO is also accompanied by the modulation of charge density. The electronic response of the charge stripes is found to be gapless consistent with the hypothesis of the metallic ground state. Our experiments directly show that the striped ordered systems reveal new degrees of freedom not present in ordinary one-dimensional conductors.