New type of ordering process with volume change of molecules in the spin-crossover transition, and its new aspects of dynamical processes

Bistability between the high- and low-spin states in spin-crossover materials provides a complex temperature dependence of the ordering processes. Thermodynamic properties of the ordering phenomena were studied in a unified way, and a generic structure of the ordering processes was proposed. The origin of the interaction among the spins was also discussed, and a new mechanism based on an elastic interaction among distortions due to the volume of a molecule depending on its spin state was also proposed. With this mechanism, the typical pressure dependence of the ordering processes can be reproduced. Moreover, we studied the type of criticality of the phase transition and pointed out that the present model possesses critical behaviour belonging to the mean-field universality class. There, the spin-spin correlation function is constant at long distances and does not show an exponential decay in contrast to short-range models. It is also pointed out that the model with periodic boundary conditions does not show ordering clusters, even near the critical point or in the process of spinodal decomposition. This indicates that critical opalescence would not be observed in this model. No cluster appears, either in photo-excitation process from the low-spin state at low temperatures. On the other hand, with open boundary conditions, the system shows a cluster structure. The effects of the boundary conditions are also discussed.