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Updated: Dec 25, 2025

Combining Microfluidics and Microrheology to Determine Rheological Properties of Soft Matter during Repeated Phase Transitions
Published on: April 19, 2018
Critical Slowing Down at the Abrupt Mott Transition: When the First-Order Phase Transition Becomes Zeroth Order and
Satyaki Kundu1, Tapas Bar1, Rajesh Kumble Nayak1
1Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, Mohanpur, Nadia, West Bengal 741246, India.
Abstract:
We report that the thermally induced Mott transition in vanadium sesquioxide shows critical slowing down and enhanced variance ("critical opalescence") of the order parameter fluctuations measured through low-frequency resistance-noise spectroscopy. Coupled with the observed increase of the phase-ordering time, these features suggest that the strong abrupt transition is controlled by a critical-like singularity in the hysteretic metastable phase. The singularity is identified with the spinodal point and is a likely consequence of the strain-induced long-range interaction.
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