16 research outputs found
The order parameter-entropy relation in some universal classes: experimental evidence
The asymptotic behaviour near phase transitions can be suitably characterized
by the scaling of with , where is
the excess entropy and is the order parameter. As is obtained by
integration of the experimental excess specific heat of the transition , it displays little experimental noise so that the curve versus is better constrained than, say,
versus . The behaviour of for different
universality classes is presented and compared. In all cases, it clearly
deviates from being a constant. The determination of this function can then be
an effective method to distinguish asymptotic critical behaviour. For
comparison, experimental data for three very different systems, Rb2CoF4,
Rb2ZnCl4 and SrTiO3, are analysed under this approach. In SrTiO3, the function
does not deviate within experimental resolution from a straight
line so that, although Q can be fitted with a non mean-field exponent, the data
can be explained by a classical Landau mean-field behaviour. In contrast, the
behaviour of for the antiferromagnetic transition in Rb2CoF4 and
the normal-incommensurate phase transition in Rb2ZCl4 is fully consistent with
the asymptotic critical behaviour of the universality class corresponding to
each case. This analysis supports, therefore, the claim that incommensurate
phase transitions in general, and the ABX compounds in particular, in
contrast with most structural phase transitions, have critical regions large
enough to be observable.Comment: 13 pp. 9 ff. 2 tab. RevTeX. Submitted to J. Phys.: Cond. Matte
Systematic behaviour of the in-plane penetration depth in d-wave cuprates
We report the temperature T and oxygen concentration dependences of the
penetration depth of grain-aligned YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-\delta} with \delta= 0.0, 0.3
and 0.43. The values of the in-plane \lambda_{ab}(0) and out-of-plane
\lambda_{c}(0) penetration depths, the low temperature linear term in
\lambda_{ab}(T), and the ratio \lambda_{c}(0) /\lambda_{ab}(T) were found to
increase with increasing . The systematic changes of the linear term in
\lambda_{ab}(T) with T_c found here and in recent work on HgBa_2Ca_{n-1}
Cu_nO_{2n+2+\delta} (n = 1 and 3) are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Interfaces in metamict titanite: the macroscopic mechanical properties after stepwise annealing
Elastic material properties of metamict titanite (sample E2312) during thermally induced stepwise recrystallization are measured using nanoindentation. Changes of the elastic modulus (E) and the hardness (H) are related to increasing long-range order and vanishing amorphous interface areas. Metamict titanite shows H and E values close to titanite glass. H decreases on annealing until ca. 950 K to 9.08 GPa and increases at higher temperatures, while E increases continuously on annealing up to ca. 168.4 GPa at 1220 K. Crystalline titanite from Rauris shows strong anisotropy and H and E values are clearly larger than those of E2312