Anisotropic suppression of hyperuniformity of elastic systems in media with planar disorder

Abstract

Disordered hyperuniform materials with vanishing long-wavelength density fluctuations are attracting attention due to their unique physical properties. In these systems, the large-scale density fluctuations are strongly suppressed as in a perfect crystal, even though the system can be disordered like a liquid. Yet, hyperuniformity can be affected by the different types of quenched disorder unavoidably present in the host medium where constituents are nucleated. Here, we use vortex matter in superconductors as a model elastic system to study how planar correlated disorder impacts the otherwise hyperuniform structure nucleated in samples with weak point disorder. Planes of defects suppress hyperuniformity in an anisotropic fashion: while in the transverse direction to defects the long-wavelength density fluctuations are non-vanishing, in the longitudinal direction they are smaller and the system can eventually recover hyperuniformity for sufficiently thick samples. Our findings stress the need of considering the nature of disorder and thickness-dependent dimensional crossovers in the search for novel hyperuniform materials.