About cookies on this site Our websites require some cookies to function properly (required). In addition, other cookies may be used with your consent to analyze site usage, improve the user experience and for advertising. For more information, please review your options. By visiting our website, you agree to our processing of information as described in IBM’sprivacy statement. To provide a smooth navigation, your cookie preferences will be shared across the IBM web domains listed here.
Publication
Physical Review Letters
Paper
KH2PO4 in a Field: A transition without critical microscopic fluctuations
Abstract
Light scattering on potassium dihydrogen phosphate demonstrates that the ordering electric field reduces the isothermal microscopic response. At the continuous transition occurring at the critical field no microscopic critical fluctuation exists (no diverging correlation range) and only macroscopic thermodynamic quantities can diverge classically. This general effect for symmetry-nonbreaking elastic transitions is caused in potassium dihydrogen phosphate by higher than bilinear strain-polarization couplings in the free energy. © 1979 The American Physical Society.