Excitation of phase transitions in dipole lattices

Phase transitions in hexagonal lattices with three and four rows of dipoles arising as a result of the reorientation of different sets of dipoles by the external field have been studied. The conditions of the implementation of two types of symmetric phase transitions and the asymmetric transitions, when the configurations of the system to the left and to the right of the excitation region are different, have been established. Merging of two regions of the phase transitions has been considered. Unidirectional phase transitions, in which either the left or the right phase transition front propagates from the excitation region along the lattice, have been obtained in a lattice with four rows of dipoles. The variations of the total dipole moment of the system and the energy of the dipole-dipole interaction during the phase transitions have been given. © 2013 Pleiades Publishing, Ltd.