Observation of Kosterlitz-Thouless-type melting of the disordered vortex lattice in thin films of<i>a</i>-MoGe

Abstract

Measurments of the ac penetration depth of a-MoGe films in the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field reveal an anomaly in the ac response of the vortex lattice at a characteristic temperature below the ${\mathit{H}}_{\mathit{c}2}$(T) line. The field and frequency dependence of this anomaly is found to be consistent with a Kosterlitz-Thouless-type melting of the two-dimensional vortex lattice. Moreover, we observe a crossover in the frequency dependence which suggests that the vortex lattice remains disordered on long length scales below the melting temperature.