Interplay of anisotropy and disorder in the doping-dependent melting and glass transitions of vortices in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O 8+delta

Phys Rev Lett. 2007 Apr 20;98(16):167004. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.167004. Epub 2007 Apr 20.

Abstract

We study the oxygen doping dependence of the equilibrium first-order melting and second-order glass transitions of vortices in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O 8+delta. Doping affects both anisotropy and disorder. Anisotropy scaling is shown to collapse the melting lines only where thermal fluctuations are dominant. Yet, in the region where disorder breaks that scaling, the glass lines are still collapsed. A quantitative fit to melting and replica symmetry-breaking lines of a 2D Ginzburg-Landau model further reveals that disorder amplitude weakens with doping, but to a lesser degree than thermal fluctuations, enhancing the relative role of disorder.