New Approach to Metal-Insulator Phase Transition Kinetics in Magnetic Field

TL;DR

This paper develops a Ginzburg-Landau model incorporating magnetic fields to analyze metal-insulator phase transition kinetics, revealing magnetic field-induced singularities and explaining diamagnetic behavior in semimetals.

Contribution

It introduces a novel theoretical framework that includes magnetic effects in phase transition kinetics, highlighting the role of Landau diamagnetism in singularities and transition behavior.

Findings

Magnetic field causes significant singularities in surface tension.

Landau diamagnetism influences phase transition kinetics.

Semimetals exhibit diamagnetic behavior explained by the model.

Abstract

The metal--insulator phase transition is considered on the basis of Ginzburg-Landau type equations with two different order parameters. An inclusion of magnetic field in this picture is an important step for understanding of behavior of the metal--insulator phase transition kinetics. The magnetic field leads to various singularities of the surface tension and results in drastic variations of the phase transition kinetics. The strongest singularity is due to Landau diamagnetism and determines anomalous features of MI transition kinetics. This singularity supports the well known experimental fact that almost all semimetals behave like diamagnetic materials.