Low-temperature hysteresis broadening emerging from domain-wall creep dynamics in a two-phase competing system

Hysteretic behaviour accompanies any first-order phase transition, forming a basis for many applications. However, its quantitative understanding remains challenging, and even a qualitative understanding of pronounced hysteresis broadening at low temperature, which is often observed in magnetic-field-induced first-order phase transition materials, is unclear. Here, we show that such pronounced hysteresis broadening emerges if the phase-front velocity during the first-order phase transition exhibits an activated behaviour as a function of both temperature and magnetic field. This is demonstrated by using real-space magnetic imaging techniques, for the magnetic-field-induced first-order phase transition between antiferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic phases in (Fe0.95Zn0.05)2Mo3O8. When combined with the Kolmogorov-Avrami-Ishibashi model, the observed activated temperature- and field-dependences of the growth velocity of the emerging antiferromagnetic domain quantitatively reproduce the pronounced hysteresis broadening. Furthermore, the same approach also reproduces the field-sweep-rate dependence of the transition field observed in the experiment. Our findings thus provide a quantitative and comprehensive understanding of pronounced hysteresis broadening from the microscopic perspective of domain growth. First-order phase transitions are accompanied by hysteretic behavior, but understanding this behavior is challenging. Here, hysteresis broadening, and its relationship to phase-front velocity during a first-order transition, is observed in (Fe0.95Zn0.05)2Mo3O8 via magnetic imaging.

Automated summary

This study investigates the phenomenon of hysteresis broadening in first-order phase transition materials using real-space magnetic imaging techniques. The researchers discover that the activated behavior of phase-front velocity during the transition explains the pronounced hysteresis broadening observed at low temperature. The findings provide a quantitative and comprehensive understanding of hysteresis broadening from a microscopic perspective.