Magneto-optical measurements of a cascade of transitions in superconducting La1.875Ba0.125CuO4 single crystals.

Recent experiments on the original cuprate high-temperature superconductor, La(2-x)Ba(x)CuO4, revealed a remarkable sequence of phase transitions. Here we investigate such crystals with the polar Kerr effect, which is sensitive to time-reversal-symmetry breaking. Concurrent birefringence measurements accurately locate the structural phase transitions from high-temperature tetragonal to low-temperature orthorhombic, and then to lower-temperature tetragonal, at which temperature strong Kerr signal onsets. Hysteretic behavior of the Kerr signal suggests that time-reversal symmetry is already broken well above room temperature, an effect that was previously observed in high quality YBa2Cu3O(6+x) crystals.