English

Two components of critical current in YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{7-\delta}$ films

Superconductivity 2016-12-19 v1

Abstract

Combined action of weak and strong pinning centers on the vortex lattice complicates magnetic behavior of a superconductor since temperature and magnetic field differently affect weak and strong pinning. In this paper we show that contributions of weak and strong pinning into magnetization of the layered superconductor YBa2_2Cu3_3O7δ_{7-\delta} can be separated and analyzed individually. We performed a careful analysis of temperature behavior of the relaxed superconducting current JJ in YBa2_2Cu3_3O7δ_{7-\delta} films which revealed two components of the current J=J1+J2J = J_1 +J_2. A simple method of separation of the components and their temperature dependence in low magnetic fields are discussed. We found that J1J_1 is produced by weak collective pinning on the oxygen vacancies in CuO2_2 planes while J2J_2 is caused by strong pinning on the Y2_2O3_3 precipitates. J1J_1 component weakly changes with field and quasi-exponentially decays with temperature, disappearing at T30T \simeq 30--40~K. Rapid relaxation of J1J_1 causes formation of the normalized relaxation rate peak at T20T \simeq 20~K. J2J_2 component is suppressed by field as J2B0.54J_2\propto B^{-0.54} and decays with temperature following to the power law J2(1T/Tdp)αJ_2\propto(1 - T/T_\mathrm{dp} )^\alpha where TdpT_\mathrm{dp} is the depinning temperature. Detailed comparison of the experimental data with pinning theories is presented.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1612.05454,
  title  = {Two components of critical current in YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{7-\delta}$ films},
  author = {A. V. Kuznetsov and I. I. Sanninkov and A. A. Ivanov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1612.05454},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

15 pages, 12 figures, 1 table