Relating supercooling and glass-like arrest of kinetics for phase separated systems: doped CeFe₂ and (La,Pr,Ca)MnO₃

Abstract

Coexisting ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic phases over a range of temperature as well as magnetic field have been reported in many materials of current interest, showing disorder-broadened first-order transitions. Anomalous history effects observed in magnetization and resistivity are being explained invoking the concepts of kinetic arrest akin to glass transitions. From magnetization measurements traversing unusual paths in field-temperature space, we obtain the intriguing result that the regions of the sample which can be supercooled to lower temperatures undergo kinetic-arrest at higher temperatures, and vice versa. Our results are for two diverse systems viz., the inter-metallic doped CeFe₂ which has an antiferromagnetic ground state, and the oxide La-Pr-Ca-Mn-O which has a ferromagnetic ground state, indicating the possible universality of this effect of disorder on the widely encountered phenomenon of glass-like arrest of kinetics.