Abstract
General arguments1 suggest that first-order phase transitions become less sharp in the presence of weak disorder, while extensive disorder can transform them into second-order transitions; but the atomic level details of this process are not clear. The vortex lattice in superconductors provides a unique system in which to study the first-order transition2,3,4,5,6 on an inter-particle scale, as well as over a wide range of particle densities. Here we use a differential magneto-optical technique to obtain direct experimental visualization of the melting process in a disordered superconductor. The images reveal complex behaviour in nucleation, pattern formation, and solid–liquid interface coarsening and pinning. Although the local melting is found to be first-order, a global rounding of the transition is observed; this results from a disorder-induced broad distribution of local melting temperatures, at scales down to the mesoscopic level. We also resolve local hysteretic supercooling of microscopic liquid domains, a non-equilibrium process that occurs only at selected sites where the disorder-modified melting temperature has a local maximum. By revealing the nucleation process, we are able to experimentally evaluate the solid–liquid surface tension, which we find to be extremely small.
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Acknowledgements
We thank D. R. Nelson, Y. Imry, V. Vinokur, L. Balents, C. Varma, C. van der Beek and M. Indenbom for valuable discussions. This work was supported by the Israel Science Foundation and Center of Excellence Program, by the Ministry of Science, Israel, by the MINERVA Foundation, Munich, Germany, and by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Japan.
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Soibel, A., Zeldov, E., Rappaport, M. et al. Imaging the vortex-lattice melting process in the presence of disorder . Nature 406, 282–287 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35018532
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35018532
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