Latent-heat and non-linear vortex liquid at the vicinity of the first-order phase transition in layered high-Tc superconductors

Abstract

In this work we revisit the vortex matter phase diagram in layered superconductors solving still open questions by means of AC and DC local magnetic measurements in the paradigmatic Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_8$ compound. We show that measuring with AC magnetic techniques is mandatory in order to probe the bulk response of vortex matter, particularly at high-temperatures where surface barriers for vortex entrance dominate. From the $T_{\mathrm{FOT}}$-evolution of the enthalpy and latent-heat at the transition we find that, contrary to previous reports, the nature of the dominant interlayer coupling is electromagnetic in the whole temperature range. By studying the dynamic properties of the phase located at $T\gtrsim T_{\mathrm{FOT}}$, we reveal the spanning in a considerable fraction of the phase diagram of a non-linear vortex phase suggesting bulk pinning might play a role even in the liquid vortex phase.

arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1212.4564

References in corpus (1)

• Composite to tilted vortex lattice transition in $B{i}_{2}S{r}_{2}CaC{u}_2{O}_{8+\delta }$ in oblique fields

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Unveiling the vortex glass phase in the surface and volume of a type-II superconductor
• Size-induced depression of first-order transition lines and entropy-jump in extremely-layered nanocrystalline vortex matter
• Vortex matter freezing in Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_8$ samples with a very dense distribution of columnar defects
• Excess of topological defects induced by confinement in vortex nanocrystals
• Non-Gaussian tail in the force distribution: A hallmark of correlated disorder in the host media of elastic objects
• Finite-size effects in hyperuniform vortex matter
• Second ac screening step as a probe for the first-order melting transition in layered vortex matter at intermediate temperatures
• Hyperuniform patterns nucleated at low temperatures: Insight from vortex matter imaged in unprecedentedly large fields-of-view