Mobility of the Doped Holes and the Antiferromagnetic Correlations in Underdoped High-TcCuprates

The emergence and the evolution of the metallic charge transport in the ${\mathrm{La}}_{2-x}{\mathrm{Sr}}_x{\mathrm{CuO}}_4$ system from lightly to optimally doped samples ( $x=0.01\mathrm{}–0.17$) are studied. We demonstrate that in high-quality single crystals the in-plane resistivity shows a metallic behavior for all values of $x$ at moderate temperatures and that the hole mobility at 300 K changes only by a factor of 3 from $x=0.01\mathrm{}$ to 0.17, where its $x$ dependence is found to be intriguingly similar to that of the inverse antiferromagnetic correlation length. We discuss an incoherent-metal picture and a charged-stripe scenario as candidates to account for these peculiar features.