No abstract

Equilibrium phase transitions are influenced by fluctuations and often discussed within the framework of the Gibbs free energy, wherein the exchange of energy between system and thermal bath is stationary and all regions of the sample exhibit the same phase. Presence of spatial heterogeneity in the magnetic structures such as pinning centers, domain walls, topological defects, etc. may cause temporal heterogeneity that modifies the nature of the magnetic phase transition. This study reports that interplay of nanoscale thermodynamics with spatio-temporal heterogeneity gives rise to complex phase transition pathways in amorphous Fe x Ge 1-x thin films with temperature and Fe-concentration (x). Coherent resonant soft X-ray scattering experiments that have simultaneous spatial, temporal, and spectral sensitivity show that the origin of helical to paramagnetic phase transition in amorphous Fe-Ge thin films lies in the appearance of enhanced-fluctuation spots deep inside the ordered state. The fluctuations are heterogeneous, starting over a small fraction of the domains that increases and becomes isotropic over the entire film as the temperature increases or the Fe-concentration decreases. The fluctuating-fraction, when normalized to magnetization for different Fe-concentrations, follows a single power law behavior, suggesting that the nature of the transition can be described in terms of the underlying spatio-temporal fluctuations.