2003/01/14 by S. S. Banerjee, Alexander Soibel, A. Soibel +13 · 5 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.supr-con #nanoparticles nucleation surface interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.90.087004
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 087004 (2003) · (1) Paper to appear in Physical Review Letters. (2) 4 pages of text and 5 figures (3 figures in jpg and 2 figures in ps format). (3) Additional information about this work and Colored movies of the melting process can be obtained from http://www.weizmann.ac.il/home/fnsup/research-porous.html#movies
arxiv created 2003/01/14 · openalex publication_date 2003/02/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Bitter decoration and magneto-optical studies reveal that in heavy-ion irradiated superconductors, a "porous" vortex matter is formed when vortices outnumber columnar defects. In this state ordered vortex crystallites are embedded in the "pores" of a rigid matrix of vortices pinned on columnar defects. The crystallites melt through a first-order transition while the matrix remains solid. The melting temperature increases with density of columnar defects and eventually turns into a continuous transition. At high temperatures a sharp kink in the melting line is found, signaling an abrupt change from crystallite melting to melting of the rigid matrix.