Anisotropic Latent Heat of Vortex-Lattice Melting in Untwinned YBa{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub 7-{delta}}
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)
- Science and Technology Center for Superconductivity, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439 (United States)
We report a distinct thermal signature of the first-order vortex-lattice melting for the external magnetic field H both parallel and perpendicular to the c axis of an untwinned YBa{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub 7-{delta}} single crystal. Latent heats and discontinuities in specific heat were observed for each configuration. The entropies of melting and the melting lines H{sub m}(T) both scale with an anisotropy parameter {gamma}{approx}8 . The specific heat of the vortex fluid is considerably larger than that of the vortex solid (by up to 2mJ/moleK{sup 2} ), which is not explained by simple arguments based on counting the numbers of thermodynamic degrees of freedom. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC03-76SF00098
- OSTI ID:
- 531869
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 25 Vol. 78; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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