Structural transition kinetics and activated behavior in the superconducting vortex lattice

Louden, E. R.; Rastovski, C.; Kuhn, S. J.; Leishman, A. W. D.; DeBeer-Schmitt, L.; Dewhurst, C. D.; Zhigadlo, N. D.; Eskildsen, M. R. (2019). Structural transition kinetics and activated behavior in the superconducting vortex lattice. Physical review. B - condensed matter and materials physics, 99(6) American Physical Society 10.1103/PhysRevB.99.060502

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Using small-angle neutron scattering, we investigated the behavior of a metastable vortex lattice state in MgB2 as it is driven towards equilibrium by an ac magnetic field. This shows an activated behavior, where the ac field amplitude and cycle count are equivalent to, respectively, an effective “temperature” and “time.” The activation barrier increases as the metastable state is suppressed, corresponding to an aging of the vortex lattice. Furthermore, we find a crossover from a partial to a complete suppression of metastable domains depending on the ac field amplitude, which may empirically be described by a single free parameter. This represents an unconventional kind of collective vortex behavior, not governed by pinning, most likely due to the nucleation and growth of equilibrium vortex lattice domains.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences (DCBP)

UniBE Contributor:

Zhigadlo, Nikolai

Subjects:

500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology
500 Science > 540 Chemistry

ISSN:

1098-0121

Publisher:

American Physical Society

Language:

English

Submitter:

Franziska Bornhauser-Rufer

Date Deposited:

27 Feb 2020 10:10

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:36

Publisher DOI:

10.1103/PhysRevB.99.060502

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.140614

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/140614

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