Do superconductors have zero resistance in a magnetic field?

Inhomogeneity and irreversibility field of superconducting Nb-Ti tapes

Magnetizations and current-voltage characteristics of superconducting tapes from Nb-50% wt.Ti alloy are studied. In the region of external magnetic fields close to the upper critical field, there is a so called irreversibility field, which is often associated with the phase transition of vortex matter. However, in this study it is shown that the whole volume of experimental data can be described if we abandon the hypothesis of a phase transition and go over to the hypothesis of macroscopic inhomogeneity. This hypothesis implies the existence of two superconducting components with different upper critical fields, which naturally arise as a result of the production process.

Evidence for a vortex-glass transition in superconducting Ba(Fe0.9Co0.1)2As2

Measurements of magneto-resistivity and magnetic susceptibility were performed on single crystals of superconducting Ba(Fe0.9Co0.1)2As2 close to the conditions of optimal doping. The high quality of the investigated samples allows us to reveal dynamic scaling behaviour associated with a vortex-glass phase transition in the limit of a weak degree of quenched disorder. Accordingly, the dissipative component of the ac susceptibility is reproduced well within the framework of Havriliak-Negami relaxation, assuming a critical power-law divergence for the characteristic correlation time τ of the vortex dynamics. Remarkably, the random disorder introduced by the Fe1-xCox chemical substitution is found to act on the vortices as a much weaker quenched disorder than previously reported for cuprate superconductors such as Y1-xPrxBa2Cu3O7-δ.

Phase transition and critical dynamics in site-diluted Josephson-junction arrays

Measurements of the IV characteristics of site-diluted Josephson-junction arrays have revealed intriguing effects of percolative disorder on the phase transition and the vortex dynamics in a two-dimensional XY system. Different from other types of phase transitions, the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition was eliminated with the introduction of percolative disorder far below the percolation threshold. Even after the Kosterlitz-Thouless order had been removed, the system remained superconducting at low temperatures by establishing a different type of order. Near the percolation threshold, evidence was found that, as a consequence of the underlying fractal structure, the critical dynamics of the phase degrees of freedom persisted down to zero temperature.

Out-of-equilibrium dynamics of the vortex glass in superconductors

We study the relaxational dynamics of flux lines in high-temperature superconductors with random pinning using Langevin dynamics. At high temperatures the dynamics is stationary and the fluctuation dissipation theorem (FDT) holds. At low temperatures the system does not equilibrate with its thermal bath: a simple multiplicative aging is found, the FDT is violated, and we find that an effective temperature characterizes the slow modes of the system. The generic features of the evolution--scaling laws--are dictated by those of the single elastic line in a random environment.

The Elusive Bose Metal

The conventional theory of metals is in crisis. In the past 15 years, there has been an unexpected sprouting of metallic states in low-dimensional systems, directly contradicting conventional wisdom. For example, bosons are thought to exist in one of two ground states: condensed in a superconductor or localized in an insulator. However, several experiments on thin metal-alloy films have observed that a metallic phase disrupts the direct transition between the superconductor and the insulator. We analyze the experiments on the insulator-superconductor transition and argue that the intervening metallic phase is bosonic. All relevant theoretical proposals for the Bose metal are discussed, particularly the recent idea that the metallic phase is glassy. The implications for the putative vortex-glass state in the copper oxide superconductors are examined.

Amorphous vortex glass phase in strongly disordered superconductors

We introduce a model describing vortices in strongly disordered three-dimensional superconductors. The model focuses on the topological defects, i.e., dislocation lines, in an elastic description of the vortex lattice. The model is studied using Monte Carlo simulations, revealing a glass phase at low temperatures, separated by a continuous phase transition to the high temperature resistive vortex liquid phase. The critical exponents nu approximately 1.3 and eta approximately -0.4 characterizing the transition are obtained from finite size scaling.

Critical behavior of frustrated Josephson junction arrays with bond disorder

The scaling behavior of the current-voltage (IV) characteristics of a two-dimensional proximity-coupled Josephson junction array (JJA) with quenched bond disorder was investigated for frustrations f = 1/5, 1/3, 2/5, and 1/2. For all these frustrations including 1/5 and 2/5 where a strongly first-order phase transition is expected in the absence of disorder, the IV characteristics exhibited a good scaling behavior. The critical exponent nu indicates that bond disorder may drive the phase transitions to be continuous but not into the Ising universality class, contrary to what was observed in Monte Carlo simulations. The dynamic critical exponent z for JJA's was found to be only 0.60-0.77.