First order phase transition from the vortex liquid to an amorphous solid
M. Menghini1, Yanina Fasano1, F. de la Cruz1,
S.S. Banerjee2, Y. Myasoedov2, E. Zeldov2,
C.J. van der Beek3, M. Konczykowski3 and T. Tamegai4
1Instituto Balseiro and Centro Atómico Bariloche, CNEA, Bariloche, 8400, Argentina.
2Department of Condensed Matter Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
3Laboratoire des Solides Irradiés, CNRS UMR 7642, Ecole Polytechnique, 91128 Palaiseau, France.
4Department of Applied Physics, The University of Tokyo, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, and CREST Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST), Japan
Abstract
Usually first order liquid-solid phase transitions imply a disorder-order structural
transformation. Vortex matter in superconductors has been proved to be a very useful system to
study phase transitions in condensed matter physics. This soft matter presents either first or
second order phase transition depending on the characteristics of the samples. It is widely
accepted that the first order vortex liquid-solid phase transition is associated with a
crystalline solid phase and the second order transition with an amorphous one. The combination of a
technique that determines the order of the transition with the visualization of the vortex
structure has allowed the detection, for the first time, of a first order liquid-solid transition
without structural symmetry change. The results show that the proposed correlation between the
order of the transition and the topology of the solid phase is not a necessary condition. This
opens an important question on the microscopic origin of liquid-solid phase transitions in vortex
matter.
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