Non-equilibrium structural phase transitions of the vortex lattice in MgB2

Abstract

We have studied non-equilibrium phase transitions in the vortex lattice in superconducting MgB2, where metastable states are observed in connection with an intrinsically continuous rotation transition. Using small-angle neutron scattering and a stop-motion technique, we investigated the manner in which the metastable vortex lattice returns to the equilibrium state under the influence of an ac magnetic field. This shows a qualitative difference between the supercooled case which undergoes a discontinuous transition, and the superheated case where the transition to the equilibrium state is continuous. In both cases the transition may be described by an an activated process, with an activation barrier that increases as the metastable state is suppressed, as previously reported for the supercooled vortex lattice [E. R. Louden et al., Phys. Rev. B 99, 060502(R) (2019)]. Separate preparations of superheated metastable vortex lattices with different domain populations showed an identical transition towards the equilibrium state. This provides further evidence that the vortex lattice metastability, and the kinetics associated with the transition to the equilibrium state, is governed by nucleation and growth of domains and the associated domain boundaries.

arXiv comment27 pages, 10 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1812.05970

References in corpus (20)

• Theory of Structural Glasses and Supercooled Liquids
• Elastic theory of flux lattices in presence of weak disorder
• Robust metastable skyrmions and their triangular-square lattice-structural transition in a high-temperature chiral magnet
• Carbon substitution in MgB2 single crystals: structural and superconducting properties
• Ginzburg-Landau theory of vortices in a multi-gap superconductor
• Electric field-induced Skyrmion distortion and giant lattice rotation in the magnetoelectric insulator Cu2OSeO3
• Mixed state properties of superconducting MgB2 single crystals
• MgB2 single crystals: high pressure growth and anisotropic properties
• Symmetry breaking, slow relaxation dynamics, and topological defects at the field-induced helix reorientation in MnSi
• Reorientations, relaxations, metastabilities and multidomains of skyrmion lattices
• Thermal stability and irreversibility of skyrmion-lattice phases in Cu${}_2$OSeO${}_3$
• Temperature variations of the disorder-induced vortex-lattice melting landscape
• Metastable Vortex Lattice Phases in Superconducting MgB2
• Interactions between Coherent Twin Boundaries and Phase Transition of Iron under Dynamic Loading and Unloading
• Influence of disorder on Hc2-anisotropy and flux pinning in MgB2
• Metastability and hysteretic vortex pinning near the order-disorder transition in NbSe${}_2$: An interplay between plastic and elastic energy barriers?
• Rotation of Triangular Vortex Lattice in the Two-Band Superconductor MgB2
• Persistence of Metastable Vortex Lattice Domains in MgB2 in the Presence of Vortex Motion
• Structural Transitions in Vortex Systems with Anisotropic Interactions
• Structural Transition Kinetics and Activated Behavior in the Superconducting Vortex Lattice

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Rotational transition, domain formation, dislocations and defects in vortex systems with combined six- and 12-fold anisotropic interactions
• Effects of magnetic and non-magnetic doping on the vortex lattice in MgB${}_2$
• Field-angle dependent vortex lattice phase diagram in MgB2
• Reversible ordering and disordering of the vortex lattice in UPt3
• Evidence for a square-square vortex lattice transition in a high-$T_{\text{c}}$ cuprate superconductor
• Activated vortex lattice transition in a superconductor with combined sixfold and twelvefold anisotropic interactions