Anisotropic peak effect due to structural phase transition in the vortex lattice

Abstract

The recently observed new peak effect in YBCO is explained by softening of the vortex lattice (VL) due to a structural phase transition in the VL. At this transition, square lattice transforms into a distorted hexagonal one. While conventional peak effect is associated with softening of shear modes at melting, in this case the relevant mode is the point. The squash mode is highly anisotropic and we point out some peculiar effects associated with this feature. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.