New Kind of Phase Transition in Randomly Distributed Tunneling Dipoles in Alkali Halides
Abstract
We show that very dilute concentrations of dipole impurities distributed in alkali halides (for example, OH- impurities in KCl) undergo a phase transition provided that the average impurity-impurity interaction is greater than the tunnel-splitting energy of a single dipole. This theory predicts a temperature-dependent cusp in the dielectric constant. The polarization in the absence of an applied field is predicted to be zero even below the transition temperature.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review Letters
- Pub Date:
- September 1976
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevLett.37.756
- Bibcode:
- 1976PhRvL..37..756F