Weakening of Pinning Effect in Purified Rb2ZnCl4 Crystal

Abstract
Single crystals of Rb2ZnCl4 were grown by slow evaporation of an aqueous solution which had been purified by repeated recrystallization. Special care was taken to remove impurities having a tendency to enter into crystal in crystallization. The dielectric constant of the purified crystal showed thermal hysteresis of only 0.2 K in the incommensurate phase. The dielectric dispersion frequency of domain wall motion in the commensurate phase was lowered to 200 kHz from 1 MHz in the unpurified crystal. The switching time of the field-induced commensurate-to-incommensurate transition was shortened extremely in the vicinity of T c. These indicate the weakening of the pinning effect in the purified crystal.