Slow Dynamics in Hard Condensed Matter: A Case Study of the Phase Separating System NdNiO${}_3$

Abstract

We report the time dependent response of electrical resistivity in the non-magnetic perovskite oxide NdNiO${}_3$ in its phase separated state and provide a physical explanation of the observations. We also model the system and do an accurate Monte Carlo simulation of the observed behavior. While cooling a phase separation takes place in this system below its metal-insulator transition temperature and in this state the material exhibits various dynamical phenomena such as relaxation of resistivity, dependence of resistivity on cooling rate and rejuvenation of the material after ageing. These phenomena signal that the phase separated state of NdNiO${}_3$ is not in thermodynamic equilibrium and we conjecture that it consists of supercooled paramagnetic metallic and antiferromagnetic insulating phases. The supercooled phases are metastable and they switch over to the insulating equilibrium state stochastically and this can account for the slow dynamics observed in our system. We also verify the predictive power of our model by simulating the result of a new experiment and confirming it by actual measurements.

10 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Complexity in Strongly Correlated Electronic Systems
• Mott transition in VO2 revealed by infrared spectroscopy and nano-imaging
• Kinetic arrest of the first order ferromagnetic to antiferromagnetic transition in Ce(Fe${}_{0.96}$Ru${}_{0.04}$)${}_2$ : formation of a magnetic-glass

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Striped nanoscale phase separation at the metal-insulator transition of heteroepitaxial nickelates
• Spin canted magnetism, decoupling of charge and spin ordering in NdNiO${}_3$
• Heterogeneous nucleation and metal-insulator transition in epitaxial films of NdNiO${}_3$
• Impact of antiferromagnetism on the optical properties of rare earth nickelates
• First order antiferro-ferromagnetic transition in Fe49(Rh0.93Pd0.07)51 under simultaneous application of magnetic field and external pressure
• Probing the quantum phase transition in Mott insulator BaCoS_2 tuned by pressure and Ni-substitution
• Unusual temperature dependence of the spectral weight near the Fermi level of NdNiO3 thin films
• Suppression of spinodal instability by disorder in an athermal system
• Tuning the phase transition dynamics by variation of cooling field and metastable phase fraction in Al doped Pr${}_{0.5}$Ca${}_{0.5}$MnO${}_3$