A new measurement technique for investigation of vortex dynamics is introduced. The distribution of the transport current across a crystal is derived by a sensitive measurement of the self-induced magnetic field of the transport current. We are able to clearly mark where the flow of the transport current is characterized by bulk pinning, surface barrier, or a uniform current distribution. One of the novel results is that in BSCCO crystals most of the vortex liquid phase is affected by surface barriers resulting in a thermally activated apparent resistivity. As a result the standard transport measurements in BSCCO do not probe the dynamics of vortices in the bulk, but rather measure surface barrier properties.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9711284,
title = {Where does the transport current flow in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 crystals?},
author = {Dan T. Fuchs and Eli Zeldov and Michael Rappaport and Tsuyoshi Tamegai and Shuuichi Ooi and Hadas Shtrikman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9711284},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
11 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Nature