Electric-held-driven vortex lattice-glass transition and history effect inRBa2Cu3O7-delta (R = Y,Nd) single crystals - art. no. 214521

The lattice-glass transition in the solid vortex state is investigated in v ery clean, naturally twin-free RBa2Cu3O7-delta (R = Y,Nd) single crystals. We demonstrate that this transition is driven by the electric field E in ad dition to magnetic field and disorder. With increasing sweep rate of the ma gnetic field dB/dt similar toE, the transition field shifts below its equil ibrium value. This interesting and unexpected observation is related to the injection of disorder into the vortex lattice from large electric fields a t the sample surface. The fast annealing of introduced disorder in the orde red phase results in an unusual time-dependent decay of the irreversible ma gnetic moment. The correlation of this metastable behavior with path-depend ent magnetic history effects is further discussed.