Supercooling of the disordered vortex phase via minor hysteresis loops in <span class="aps-inline-formula"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mn>2</mn><mi mathvariant="normal">H</mi><mo>−</mo><mrow><msub><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">NbSe</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow></msub></mrow></math></span>

G. Ravikumar; P. K. Mishra; V. C. Sahni; S. S. Banerjee; A. K. Grover; S. Ramakrishnan; P. L. Gammel; D. J. Bishop; E. Bucher; M. J. Higgins; S. Bhattacharya

doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.61.12490

Supercooling of the disordered vortex phase via minor hysteresis loops in $2 H - {NbSe}_{2}$

G. Ravikumar, P. K. Mishra, V. C. Sahni, S. S. Banerjee, A. K. Grover, S. Ramakrishnan, P. L. Gammel, D. J. Bishop, E. Bucher, M. J. Higgins, and S. Bhattacharya

Phys. Rev. B 61, 12490 – Published 1 May 2000

Abstract

We report on the observation of novel features in the minor hysteresis loops in a clean crystal of $2 H - {NbSe}_{2},$ which displays a peak effect. The observed behavior can be explained in terms of a supercooling of the disordered vortex phase while cooling the superconductor in a field. Also, the extent of spatial order in a flux-line lattice formed in ascending fields is different from (and larger than) that in the descending fields below the peak position of the peak effect; this is attributed to a different degree of reorganization of the vortex state induced by changes in the field in the two cases.