Phys.org  February 7, 2022 Hysteresis underlies many phase transitions in solids, giving rise to exotic metastable states that are otherwise inaccessible. An international team of researchers (USA – MIT, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, SLAC Linear Accelerator Laboratory, Cornell University, Argonne National Laboratory, Clemson University, China, Russia, Germany) reported an unconventional hysteretic transition in a quasi-2D material, EuTe4. They observed that the hysteresis loop has a temperature width of more than 400 K, setting a record among crystalline solids. The transition has an origin distinct from known mechanisms, lying entirely within the incommensurate charge density wave (CDW) phase of EuTe4 with […]