Vortex liquid crystals in anisotropic type II superconductors

Abstract

In a type II superconductor in a moderate magnetic field, the superconductor to normal state transition may be described as a phase transition in which the vortex lattice melts into a liquid. In a biaxial superconductor, or even a uniaxial superconductor with magnetic field oriented perpendicular to the symmetry axis, the vortices acquire elongated cross sections and interactions. Systems of anisotropic, interacting constituents generally exhibit liquid crystalline phases. We examine the possibility of a two step melting in homogeneous type II superconductors with anisotropic superfluid stiffness from a vortex lattice into first a vortex smectic and then a vortex nematic at high temperature and magnetic field. We find that fluctuations of the ordered phase favor an instability to an intermediate smectic-A in the absence of intrinsic pinning.

References in corpus (3)

• A Four-Unit-Cell Periodic Pattern of Quasiparticle States Surrounding Vortex Cores in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d
• Antiferromagnetic Order Induced by an Applied Magnetic Field in a High-Temperature Superconductor
• Spins in the Vortices of a High Temperature Superconductor

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