2009/03/13 by A. P. Petrovic, A. P. Petrović, Y. Fasano +13 · 31 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Computer science #Phase (matter) #Phase diagram #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum mechanics #Space (punctuation) #Theoretical and Computational Physics #Thermodynamics #Vortex #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · open access · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.103.257001
published in Physical Review Letters 103(25), 257001 (American Physical Society) · 5 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2009/03/13 · openalex publication_date 2009/12/15 · arxiv updated 2013/03/06 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Using scanning tunneling microscopy at 400 mK, we have obtained maps of around 100 vortices in SnMo(6)S(8) from 2-9 T. The orientational and positional disorder at 5 and 9 T show that these are the first large-scale images of a vortex glass. At higher temperature a magnetization peak effect is observed, whose upper boundary coincides with a lambda anomaly in the specific heat. Our data favor a kinetic glass description of the vortex melting transition, indicating that vortex topological disorder persists at fields and temperatures far below the peak effect in low-T(c) superconductors.