18 August 1997 Physics Letters A 233 (1997) 130-134 PHYSICS LETTERS A Angular restrictions on the glass transition and on the c-axis correlated liquid phase in twinned YBa,Cu307_5 E. Morré, S.A. Grigera, E. Osquiguil, G. Nieva, F. de la Cruz Centro Atémico Bariloche and Instituto Balseiro, Comisién Nacional de Energia At6mica, 8400 San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina Received 23 May 1997; accepted for publication 2 June 1997 ‘Communicated by J. Flouguet Abstract ‘We have measured the angular dependence of the vortex velocity correlation temperature Tix( H) in twinned YBaxCusO_s single crystals. The data show that the c-axis correlated vortex liquid phase exists up to angles much larger than expected within a ‘single vortex pinning picture. Despite this, the second-order solid-liquid glass transition is shown to be restricted only to extemal magnetic fields applied within a few degrees from the c-axis direction. © 1997 Elsevier Science B.Y. PACS: 74.60.Ge; 74.62.04 Much effort has been devoted to understanding the role played by thermal fluctuations, anisotropy, point defect disorder, and correlated pinning in the deter- mination of the complex H-T phase diagram of high T. superconductors [1]. Particular attention has been paid to understand the crucial role played by corre- lated defects in determining the structure and dynam- ical response of the vortex lattice (2~4]. An attrac- tive system for which to study these vortex-lattice correlated-defect interactions is YBa,CuxO7_», since itcan be naturally grown with or without twin bound- aries (TB). The existence is now well established of a solid- liquid first-order phase transition at Tm(H) [5-7] in clean untwinned YBayCusO7—5 when the applied magnetic field H is parallel to the c-axis, while this transition transforms into second order depending on the density of disorder {2,8,9]. Transport measurements using the flux-transformer contact configuration have shown [ 10] that in twinned crystals and for Hf || c the solid transforms intoa liquid of vortex lines with velocity correlation in the field di- rection at a temperature 7;(H). This correlation is lost at a sample-thickness-dependent temperature Tix(H), where the vortex correlation length equals the sam- ple thickness [4]. Similar measurements in untwinned samples have shown [11] that the vortex solid melts, at Tr(H) into a liquid with no phase correlation in any direction indicating that the TB potential is essen- tial for the estabilization of the c-axis correlated liquid phase. On the other hand, magnetization [12] and isother- ‘mal magnetoresistance [13,14] measurements as a function of the angle @ between H and the c-axis in crystals with unidirectionally oriented twins were used to investigate the angular range in which the TB po- tential affects the vortex lattice. The results were in- terpreted in terms of pinning by TB which dominates the transport properties for small angles. Within this picture, for very small angles the vortices are trapped (0375-9601/97/$17.00 © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved PII'S0375-9601(97)00434-9E, Morré et al./ Physics Leters A 233 (1997) 130-134 131 into the TB potential over their entire length, while for slightly larger angles the vortices accommodate to the TB forming kinked structures. When the angle ex- ceeds a depinning angle 0, the vortices are assumed to straighten and intersect the TB only at points (13] Moreover, for large angles the hysteresis loops [12] and the R(T) curves [13] resemble the behavior of the corresponding magnitudes in untwinned crystals. In particular the R(T) curves show a sharp drop to R = O similar to that appearing in Tm in untwinned samples, suggesting a possible first-order phase tran- sition for @ > 6 [14]. From the above discussion it follows that if a de~ pinning angle [12,13] exists no vortex fines with ve- locity correlation ( 11] in the field direction should be expected above 6). To probe whether the TB become in fact ineffective as a correlated pinning potential at angles @ > 6 we have measured the angular dependence of the tempera- ture at which phase correlation along the vortex direc- tion is lost in unidirectionally twinned YBaCus07—s single crystals using the transformer contact configu- ration. In this Letter we prove that the vortices in the liquid state are correlated in the field direction up to angles much larger than 6, showing that the TB remain ef- fective as correlated defects in a wider angular range than that expected within a single vortex pinning pic- ture [12,13]. In spite of this, scaling analysis of the I-V characteristics show that the solid-liquid phase transition is second order only in an extremely narrow range of angles around the c-axis. For large angles no pure first- or second-order transition is detected. The twinned YBayCu3O7—s single crystals, which were grown as indicated in Ref. [ 10], had critical tran- sition temperatures 7; © 93 K and transition widths AT, < 0.3 K. Three crystals (A45, B45, C45) with typical dimensions 1 x 0.5 x 0.045 mm} and the twin planes at 45° off the largest dimension, and one crys- tal (AO), 2 x 1 x 0.03 mm*, with the twin planes par- allel to its length were selected. Eight contacts were ‘made on crystals AO, Ad5 and B45 in the transformer configuration [ 10] (see inset Fig. 2), while in crystal (C45, used for the /-V measurements, current contacts were made in such a way that the current was homo- geneous along the sample. The crystals were mounted ‘onto a rotatable sample holder with an angular reso- lution of 0.06° inside a cryostat with an 8 T magnet. ae TIKI Fig. 1. Resistive tails as a function of temperature for 6 T applied ‘magnetic field at small angles from the c-axis, Inset shows the isothermal magnetoresistance, R(@) taken aT = 83 K as indicated by the dashed line in the main pane! (lines are guides to the eye) The top (Vop) and bottom (Yo) voltages were measured as a function of temperature using a lock-in amplifier at 29 Hz with a room temperature 1 : 100 ow noise transformer and conventional circuitry, ob- ing a noise level < 1 nV, Current densities J < 5 A/em? were applied through the top face contacts along the twin planes for crystal AO, and at 45° for crystals A4S, B45. 1-V curves were measured using standard four probe dc techniques. In all cases the ro- tation of the magnetic field off the c-axis was done at constant Lorentz force for fields between 1 T and 8 T. In order to determine 0, for our samples, we mea- sured the R(T) for several applied magnetic fields and different angles off the c-axis. In Fig. 1 we plot the R(T) tails at H = 6 T and several angles for crys- tal AO, from which we constructed the R(@) curve at T =83 K (dashed vertical line) as shown in the inset, a similar fashion as done in Ref. [13]. From the data in the main panel it is clear that the shape of the transitions is drastically changed as the angle is in- creased from zero. The R(T) tails are concave and go smoothly to R = O up to 6; * 2° while above this angle they become convex and develop a sharp drop towards R = O. Similar features can be observed in the data of Fleshler et al. [13]. Above @ ~ 5° the R(T) tails fully develop the kink and as the angle is increased they shift to higher temperatures (not shown in the figure) without changing their shape. The isothermal R(6) curve shown in the inset increases sharply from @ =0 and has a maximum at 0, © 9°. This curve has132 E, Morré et al./Physics Letters A 233 (1997) 130-134 ViM TIKI) Fig. 2. Temperature dependence of the top and bottom voltages for 2 6 T magnetic field and several angles for crystal B4S. In the upper inset is shown the low temperature region of the top voltage together with the difference of top and bottom voltages for small angles. The lower inset sketches the transformer contact configuration, Also shown is the rotation angle 8 a similar shape as those reported in Ref. [13] The fact that the R(T) transitions have a completely different shape below and above 6; ~ 2° suggests that the dynamical response of the c-axis correlated vortex. liquid is determined by different physical mechanisms, below and above 6, which is much smaller than 6p, To investigate if these changes in the dynamical re- sponse of the vortex lattice are related to a loss of ve~ locity correlation in the field direction, we measured Veep and Vor as a function of temperature for several angles and applied magnetic fields. Typical results are shown in Fig. 2 for crystal B45 and H = 6'T. The tem- perature 7;(6) is defined as T (R= 0), while Tan(0) is determined by Vop ~ Veot = 0, both within a 1 nV cri terion. As seen in the upper inset the absolute value of these quantities is hardly changed if a different crite- rion, for example 2 ny, is used. It should also be noted that the systematic change of 7; and Ty with angle is clearly resolved irrespective of the adopted criterion, The relative error in temperature of these magnitudes is = 5x 10-4. The same behavior is observed for sam- ples AO and A45, and for all other applied fields. The temperature range between 7)(0) and Ty,(8) indicates the region where a c-axis correlated vortex liquid ex- ists [10]. ‘A summary of the results for crystal AO at H = 6T is shown in Fig. 3. We plot 7)\(@) in Fig. 3a and Ti(8) Fig. 3b as a function of @. A sharp increase of T; as, 85.9 S858 e G °, 3 85.7 Ped! 82.5 La22 81.9 Pad (a) . ° 20-15-10 -§ 0 5 10 15 20 @ (deg) Fig. 3. (a) Angular dependence of 7; and (b) Ti for sample AO at 6 T. Note the different temperature scales in both panels 4 = 0 is approached is clearly observed. The peak is extremely narrow and its angular width coincides with the change in the curvature of the resistive transitions near R = 0 (see Fig. 1). Above 6 ~ 5° the 7;(8) increases smoothly following the angular dependence given by the anisotropy. Similar results are observed for other crystals and other applied fields. Lis interesting to note that the sharp peak in T;(8) near @ = 0 is also reflected in the vortex velocity correlation temperature Ti,(@) although with a much smaller amplitude. Itis clear from these data that Ty(0) is different from 7;(6) in the entire angular range shown in Fig. 3. According to the definition of Ty [4] these results show that the c-axis correlated vortex liquid exists up to angles much larger than 8, ~ 9° indicating that the TB potential remains effective in maintaining the vortex velocity correlation across the sample thick- ness even for @ > 6. It is therefore evident that 6, obtained from isothermal magnetoresistance measure- ments cannot be identified as the angle above which the TB become ineffective as correlated defects.