B. Maiorov et al., First-order phase transition of the vortex lattice in twinned YBa2Cu3O7 single crystals in tilted magnetic fields, PHYS REV B, 61(18), 2000, pp. 12427-12432
We present an exhaustive analysis of transport measurements performed in tw
inned YBa2Cu3O7 single crystals which establishes that the vortex solid-liq
uid transition is first order when the magnetic held H is applied at an ang
le theta away from the direction of the twin planes. We show that the resis
tive transitions are hysteretic and the V-I curves are nonlinear, displayin
g a characteristic S shape at the melting line H-m(T), which scales as epsi
lon(theta)H-m(T,theta), where epsilon(theta) is the anisotropy factor. Thes
e features are gradually lost when the critical point H*(theta) is approach
ed. Above H*(theta) the V-I characteristics show a linear response in the e
xperimentally accessible V-l window, and the transition becomes reversible.
Finally we show that the first order phase transition takes place between
a highly correlated Vortex liquid in the field direction and a solid state
of unknown symmetry. As a consequence, our data support the scenario for a
ver-tex-line melting in twinned YBa2Cu3O7 crystals in contrast to a vortex
sublimation as recently suggested for untwinned La2-xSrxCuO4, YBa2Cu3O7 and
Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 [T. Sasagawa et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 4297 (1998)].