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Order-disorder transitions between glassy phases are quite common in nature and yet a comprehensive survey of the microscopic structural changes remains elusive since the scale of the constituents is tiny and in most cases few of them take…
Although crystals are usually quite stable, they are sensitive to a disordered environment: even an infinitesimal amount of impurities can lead to the destruction of the crystalline order. The resulting state of matter has been a…
We report the first observation of a striking history dependence of the structure function of the vortex matter in the peak effect regime in a Nb single crystal by using small angle neutron scattering combined with {\it in situ} magnetic…
The breakdown of crystalline order in a disordered background connects to some of the most challenging problems in condensed matter physics. For a superconducting vortex lattice, the equilibrium state in the presence of impurities is…
The vortex lattice in a Type II superconductor provides a versatile model system to investigate the order-disorder transition in a periodic medium in the presence of random pinning. Here, using scanning tunnelling spectroscopy in a weakly…
Transport studies in a Corbino disk geometry suggest that the Bragg glass phase undergoes a first-order transition into a disordered solid. This transition shows a sharp reentrant behavior at low fields. In contrast, in the conventional…
Measurements of single crystalline MgB2 with torque magnetometry in fields up to 90 kOe reveal a sharp peak in the irreversible torque at about 0.85 Hc2. In the region between peak onset and maximum, pronounced history effects occur. Angle…
The order of the vortex state in La_{1.9} Sr_{0.1} CuO_{4} is probed using muon spin rotation and small-angle neutron scattering. A transition from a Bragg glass to a vortex glass is observed, where the latter is composed of disordered…
We study the phase diagram of vortex matter in disordered type-II superconductors. We performed numerical simulations in the London Langevin approximation, using a new realistic representation of the disorder. At low magnetic fields we find…
A review is given on the theory of vortex-glass phases in impure type-II superconductors in an external field. We begin with a brief discussion of the effects of thermal fluctuations on the spontaneously broken U(1) and translation…
We show that in type-II superconductors a magnetic field applied transversely to correlated columnar disorder, drives a phase transition to a distinct "smectic" vortex glass (SmVG) state. SmVG is characterized by an infinitely anisotropic…
In a recent letter Klein et al. [Nature 413, 404 (2001); cond-mat/0110018] provide experimental evidence for the existence of the Bragg glass phase in impure type II superconductors. Here we show that a more complete consideration of recent…
We report on drastic change of vortex dynamics with increase of quenched disorder: for rather weak disorder we found a single vortex creep regime, which we attribute to a Bragg-glass phase, while for enhanced disorder we found an increase…
The hexatic phase is an intermediate stage in the melting process of a 2D crystal due to topological defects. Recently, this exotic phase was experimentally identified in the vortex lattice of 2D weakly disordered superconducting MoGe by…
It is commonly accepted that the peak effect (PE) in the critical current density of type II superconductors is a consequence of an order-disorder transition in the vortex lattice (VL). Examination of vortex lattice configurations (VLCs) in…
The vortex matter in bulk type-II superconductors serves as a prototype system for studying the random pinning problem in condensed matter physics. Since the vortex lattice is embedded in an atomic lattice, small angle neutron scattering…
We study the vortex formation in extreme type-II superconductors immersed in strong magnetic fields in the framework of the the Ginzburg-Landau theory. We focus on the regime where superconductivity survives in the bulk of the material but…
The Bragg glass phase is a nearly perfect crystal with glassy features predicted to occur in vortex lattices and charge density wave systems in the presence of disorder. Detecting it has been challenging despite its sharp theoretical…
The vortex lattice (VL) symmetry and orientation in clean type-II superconductors depends sensitively on the host material anisotropy, vortex density and temperature, frequently leading to rich phase diagrams. Typically, a well-ordered VL…
A universal phase diagram for weakly pinned low-T$_c$ type-II superconductors is revisited and extended with new proposals. The low-temperature ``Bragg glass'' phase is argued to transform first into a disordered, glassy phase upon heating.…