  The cuprates seem to exhibit statistics, dimensionality and phase transitions
in novel ways. The nature of excitations [i.e. quasiparticle or collective],
spin-charge separation, stripes [static and dynamics], inhomogeneities,
psuedogap, effect of impurity dopings [e.g. Zn, Ni] and any other phenomenon in
these materials must be consistently understood. Zn-doped LSCO single crystal
were grown by TSFZ technique. Temperature dependent Polarized XANES [near edge
local structure] spectra were measured at the BL13-B1 [Photon Factory] in the
Flourescence mode from 10 K to 300 K. Since both stripes and nonmagnetic Zn
impurities substituted for Cu give rise to inhomogeneous charge and spin
distribution it is interesting to understand the interplay of Zn impurities and
stripes. To understand these points we have used Zn-doping and some of the
results obtained are as follows: The spectra show a strong dependence with
respect to the polarization angle, $\theta$, as is evident at any temperature
by comparing the spectra where the electric field vector is parallel with
ab-plane to the one where it is parallel to the c-axis. By using the XANES
[temperature] difference spectra we have determined T* [experimentally we find,
T* $\approx$ 160-170 K] for this sample. The XANES difference spectra shows
that the changes in XANES features are larger in the ab-plane than the c-axis,
this trend is expected since zinc is doped in the ab-plane at the copper site.
Our study also complements the results in literature namely that zinc doping
does not affect the c-axis transport.
