LongHCPulse: Long Pulse Heat Capacity on a Quantum Design PPMS

Abstract

This paper presents LongHCPulse: software which enables heat capacity to be collected on a Quantum Design PPMS using a long-pulse method. This method, wherein heat capacity is computed from the time derivative of sample temperature over long (30 min) measurement times, is necessary for probing first order transitions and shortens the measurement time by a factor of five. LongHCPulse also includes plotting utilities based on the Matplotlib library. I illustrate the use of LongHCPulse with the example of data taken on ${\rm Yb_{2}Ti_{2}O_{7}}$, and compare the results to the standard semi-adiabatic method.