Abstract
THE magnetic vortex lattice of copper oxide superconductors in the mixed (field-penetrated) state 'liquefies'1,2 on increasing the temperature T or the external magnetic field H, giving rise to an ohmic resistivity well below the fluctuation-dominated crossover to the normal state at the upper critical field Hc2(T). Theoretical work suggests that in clean materials this melting is a first-order phase transition3; features in the resistivity4–6 and magnetization7–10, as well as results from muon spin rotation11 and neutron-diffraction work12, have been cited to support this hypothesis. A calorimetric measurement of a latent heat provides the most definitive proof of the occurrence of a first-order transition, but such measurements require very high sensitivity. Here we report calorimetric measurements on an untwinned single crystal of YBa2Cu3O7–δ that have sufficient precision to clearly resolve the latent heat. The value obtained, ∼0.45kBT per vortex per superconducting layer (where kB is the Boltzmann constant), is consistent with that inferred from magnetization data using the Clapeyron equation. This result is compelling evidence for a first-order transition at a well defined phase boundary Hm(T).
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Schilling, A., Fisher, R., Phillips, N. et al. Calorimetric measurement of the latent heat of vortex-lattice melting in untwinned YBa2Cu3O7–δ. Nature 382, 791–793 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1038/382791a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/382791a0
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