A nearest neighbour spin pair of the quasi-two-dimensional three-state Potts model interacts with strength J (> 0) in the xy-plane and with lambda J (0 less than or equal to lambda much less than 1) on the z-axis. The phase transition is of second-order when lambda = 0 and is of first-order when lambda > 0. Dimensional crossover occurs with a change of the order of the phase transition. We study the finite-size effects of the phenomenon by using a Monte Carlo method with a multi-spin coding technique. The prediction of the finite-size scaling theory is consistent with the Monte Carlo results. [References: 35]
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