Rotated stripe order and its competition with superconductivity in La_1.88Sr_0.12CuO₄

We report the observation of a bulk charge modulation in La_1.88Sr_0.12CuO₄ (LSCO) with a characteristic in-plane wave vector of (0.236,±δ), with δ=0.011 r.l.u. The transverse shift of the ordering wave vector indicates the presence of rotated charge-stripe ordering, demonstrating that the charge ordering is not pinned to the Cu-O bond direction. On cooling through the superconducting transition, we find an abrupt change in the growth of the charge correlations and a suppression of the charge order parameter indicating competition between the two orderings. Orthorhombic LSCO thus helps bridge the apparent disparities between the behavior previously observed in the tetragonal “214” cuprates and the orthorhombic yttrium and bismuth-based cuprates and thus lends strong support to the idea that there is a common motif to charge order in all cuprate families.