Colossal transverse magnetoresistance due to nematic superconducting phase fluctuations in a copper oxide

Electronic anisotropy ("nematicity") has been detected in cuprate superconductors by various experimental techniques. Using angle-resolved transverse resistance (ARTR) measurements, a very sensitive and background-free technique that can detect 0.5% anisotropy in transport, we have observed it also in La_2-xSr_xCuO₄ (LSCO) for 0.02 ≤ x ≤ 0.25. A central enigma in LSCO is the rotation of the nematic director (orientation of the largest longitudinal resistance) with temperature; this has not been seen before in any material. Here, we address this puzzle by measuring the angle-resolved transverse magnetoresistance (ARTMR) in LSCO. We report the discovery of colossal transverse magnetoresistance (CTMR)-an order-of-magnitude drop in the transverse resistivity in the magnetic field of 6 T. We show that the apparent rotation of the nematic director is caused by anisotropic superconducting fluctuations, which are not aligned with the normal electron fluid, consistent with coexisting bond-aligned and diagonal nematic orders. We quantify this by modeling the (magneto-)conductivity as a sum of normal (Drude) and paraconducting (Aslamazov-Larkin) channels but extended to contain anisotropic Drude and Cooper-pair effective mass tensors. Strikingly, the anisotropy of Cooper-pair stiffness is much larger than that of the normal electrons. It grows dramatically on the underdoped side, where the fluctuations become quasi-one-dimensional. Our analysis is general rather than model dependent. Still, we discuss some candidate microscopic models, including coupled strongly-correlated ladders where the transverse (interladder) phase stiffness is low compared with the longitudinal intraladder stiffness, as well as the anisotropic superconducting fluctuations expected close to the transition to a pair-density wave state.