41 research outputs found
A method for measuring the nonlinear response in dielectric spectroscopy through third harmonics detection
We present a high sensitivity method allowing the measurement of the non
linear dielectric susceptibility of an insulating material at finite frequency.
It has been developped for the study of dynamic heterogeneities in supercooled
liquids using dielectric spectroscopy at frequencies 0.05 Hz < f < 30000 Hz .
It relies on the measurement of the third harmonics component of the current
flowing out of a capacitor. We first show that standard laboratory electronics
(amplifiers and voltage sources) nonlinearities lead to limits on the third
harmonics measurements that preclude reaching the level needed by our physical
goal, a ratio of the third harmonics to the fundamental signal about 7 orders
of magnitude lower than 1. We show that reaching such a sensitivity needs a
method able to get rid of the nonlinear contributions both of the measuring
device (lock-in amplifier) and of the excitation voltage source. A bridge using
two sources fulfills only the first of these two requirements, but allows to
measure the nonlinearities of the sources. Our final method is based on a
bridge with two plane capacitors characterized by different dielectric layer
thicknesses. It gets rid of the source and amplifier nonlinearities because in
spite of a strong frequency dependence of the capacitors impedance, it is
equilibrated at any frequency. We present the first measurements of the
physical nonlinear response using our method. Two extensions of the method are
suggested.Comment: 25 pages, 8 figure
Evidence of growing spatial correlations at the glass transition from nonlinear response experiments
The ac nonlinear dielectric response of glycerol was
measured close to its glass transition temperature to investigate the
prediction that supercooled liquids respond in an increasingly non-linear way
as the dynamics slows down (as spin-glasses do). We find that
indeed displays several non trivial features. It is peaked
as a function of the frequency and obeys scaling as a function of
, with the relaxation time of the liquid. The height
of the peak, proportional to the number of dynamically correlated molecules
, increases as the system becomes glassy, and decays as a
power-law of over several decades beyond the peak. These findings
confirm the collective nature of the glassy dynamics and provide the first
direct estimate of the dependence of .Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures. With respect to v1, a few new sentences were
added in the introduction and conclusion, references were updated, some typos
corrected
Observation of superspin glass state in magnetically textured ferrofluid (gamma-Fe2O3)
Magnetic properties in a magnetically textured ferrofluid made out of
interacting maghemite (gamma-Fe2O3) nanoparticles suspended in glycerin have
been investigated. Despite the loss of uniform distribution of anisotropy axes,
a superspin glass state exists at low temperature in a concentrated, textured
ferrofluid as in the case of its non-textured counterpart. The onset of
superspin glass state was verified from the sample's AC susceptibility. The
influence of the anisotropy axis orientation on the aging behavior in the
glassy states is also discussed
Resistance Noise Scaling in a Dilute Two-Dimensional Hole System in GaAs
We have measured the resistance noise of a two-dimensional (2D)hole system in
a high mobility GaAs quantum well, around the 2D metal-insulator transition
(MIT) at zero magnetic field. The normalized noise power increases
strongly when the hole density p_s is decreased, increases slightly with
temperature (T) at the largest densities, and decreases strongly with T at low
p_s. The noise scales with the resistance, , as for a
second order phase transition such as a percolation transition. The p_s
dependence of the conductivity is consistent with a critical behavior for such
a transition, near a density p* which is lower than the observed MIT critical
density p_c.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. Let
Experimental search for dynamic heterogeneities in molecular glass formers
We have measured the linear dielectric susceptibility of two molecular glass
formers close to Tg in order to estimate the size of the dynamically correlated
clusters of molecules which are expected to govern the physics of glass
formation. This size has been shown to be related to the dynamic dielectric
susceptibility dEps(w)/dT (Eps : dielectric susceptibility, T : temperature,
w: frequency). To allow for an accurate determination of the T
derivative, we scanned the interval 192 < T < 232 K every 1 K for glycerol and
159 < T < 179 K every 0.5 K for propylene carbonate. The resolution on T
variations was about 1 mK. The result for glycerol is that the number of
correlated molecules increases by a factor 3 when T goes from 226 to 195 K. It
has been shown that the non-linear susceptibility provides a direct measurement
of dynamic correlations. To measure it, we used a standard Lockin technique
yielding the third harmonic of the current flowing out of a capacitor. We
obtained only an upper limit on the ratio of the third to the first harmonic,
due to the non-linear response of standard electronics.Comment: 7 page
Superspin glass aging behavior in textured and nontextured frozen ferrofluid
The effect of magnetic anisotropy-axis alignment of individual nanoparticles
on the collective aging behavior in the superspin glass state of a frozen
ferrofluid has been investigated. The ferrofluid studied here consists of
maghemite nanoparticles (\gamma-Fe2O3, mean diameter = 8.6 nm) dispersed in
glycerin at a volume fraction of ~15%. The low temperature aging behavior has
been explored through 'zero-field cooled magnetization' (ZFCM) relaxation
measurements using SQUID magnetometry. The ZFCM response functions were found
to scale with effective age of the system in both textured and non-textured
superspin glass states, but with markedly different scaling exponents, \mu. The
value of {\mu} was found to shift from ~0.9 in non-textured case to ~ 0.6 in
the textured case, despite the identical cooling protocol used in both
experiments
1/f noise in a dilute GaAs two-dimensional hole system in the insulating phase
We have measured the resistance and the 1/f resistance noise of a
two-dimensional low density hole system in a high mobility GaAs quantum well at
low temperature. At densities lower than the metal-insulator transition one,
the temperature dependence of the resistance is either power-like or simply
activated. The noise decreases when the temperature or the density increase.
These results contradict the standard description of independent particles in
the strong localization regime. On the contrary, they agree with the
percolation picture suggested by higher density results. The physical nature of
the system could be a mixture of a conducting and an insulating phase. We
compare our results with those of composite thin films.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; to appear in Physica E (EP2DS-16 proceedings
A local noise measurement device for magnetic physical systems
International audienceWe present an experimental setup developed to measure locally the fluctuations of the magnetization of physical systems such as spin and superspin glasses. It is based on micronic and submicronic Hall probes. We present the noise reduction at ambient temperature owing to the use of the spinning current technique. Finally, we show why, with such probes, the noise measured on a macroscopic sample probes only a microscopic volume of the sample
Low temperature magnetization of the S = 1/2 kagome antiferromagnet ZnCu3 (O H) 6CL 2
International audienceThe dc magnetization of the unique S= 1/ 2 kagome antiferromagnet Herbertsmithite has been measured downto 0.1 K. No sign of spin freezing is observed in agreement with former SR and ac-susceptibility results. The low temperature magnetic response is dominated by a defect contribution which exhibits an energy scale 1 K, likely reflecting the coupling of the defects. The defect component is saturated at low temperature by H8 T applied magnetic fields which enables us to estimate an upper bound for the nonsaturated intrinsic kagome susceptibility at T=1.7 K