Effect of pinning and driving force on the metastability effects in weakly pinned superconductors and the determination of spinodal line pertaining to order—disorder transition

We explore the effect of varying drive on metastability features exhibited by the vortex matter in single crystals of 2H-NbSe₂ and CeRu₂ with varying degree of random pinning. The metastable nature of vortex matter is reflected in the path dependence of the critical current density, which in turn is probed in a contact-less way via AC-susceptibility measurements. The sinusoidal AC magnetic field applied during AC susceptibility measurements appears to generate a driving force on the vortex matter. In a nascent pinned single crystal of 2H-NbSe₂, where the peak effect (PE) pertaining to the order—disorder phenomenon is a sharp first-order-like transition, the supercooling feature below the peak temperature is easily wiped out by the reorganization caused by the AC driving force. In this paper, we elucidate the interplay between the drive and the pinning which can conspire to make the path-dependent AC-susceptibility response of different metastable vortex states appear identical. An optimal balance between the pinning and driving force is needed to view the metastability effects in typically weakly pinned specimen of low temperature superconductors. As one uses samples with larger pinning in order to differentiate the response of different metastable vortex states, one encounters a new phenomenon, viz., the second magnetization peak (SMP) anomaly prior to the PE. Supercooling/superheating can occur across both the PE and the SMP anomalies and both of these are known to display non-linear characteristics as well. Interplay between the path dependence in the critical current density and the non-linearity in the electromagnetic response determine the metastability effects seen in the first and the third harmonic response of the AC susceptibility across the temperature regions of the SMP and the PE. The limiting temperature above which metastability effects cease can be conveniently located in the third harmonic data, and the observed behavior can be rationalized within the Bean’s critical state model. A vortex phase diagram showing different vortex phases for a typically weakly pinned specimen has been constructed via the AC susceptibility data in a crystal of 2H-NbSe₂ which shows the SMP and the PE anomalies. The phase space of coexisting weaker and stronger pinned regions has been identified. It can be bifurcated into two parts, where the order and disorder dominate, respectively. The former part continuously connects to the reentrant disordered vortex phase pertaining to the small bundle pinning regime, where the vortices are far apart, interaction effects are weak and the polycrystalline form of flux line lattice prevails.