Simultaneous Observation of Columnar Defects and Magnetic Flux Lines in High-Temperature Bi 2 Sr 2 CaCu 2 O 8 Superconductors

Non-Gaussian tail in the force distribution: a hallmark of correlated disorder in the host media of elastic objects

Inferring the nature of disorder in the media where elastic objects are nucleated is of crucial importance for many applications but remains a challenging basic-science problem. Here we propose a method to discern whether weak-point or strong-correlated disorder dominates based on characterizing the distribution of the interaction forces between objects mapped in large fields-of-view. We illustrate our proposal with the case-study system of vortex structures nucleated in type-II superconductors with different pinning landscapes. Interaction force distributions are computed from individual vortex positions imaged in thousands-vortices fields-of-view in a two-orders-of-magnitude-wide vortex-density range. Vortex structures nucleated in point-disordered media present Gaussian distributions of the interaction force components. In contrast, if the media have dilute and randomly-distributed correlated disorder, these distributions present non-Gaussian algebraically-decaying tails for large force magnitudes. We propose that detecting this deviation from the Gaussian behavior is a fingerprint of strong disorder, in our case originated from a dilute distribution of correlated pinning centers.

Enhancement of critical current density in a superconducting NbSe2 step junction

We investigate the transport properties of a NbSe2 nanodevice consisting of a thin region, a thick region and a step junction. The superconducting critical current density of each region of the nanodevice has been studied as a function of temperature and magnetic field. We find that the critical current density has similar values for both the thin and thick regions away from the junction, while the critical current density of the thin region of the junction increases to approximately 1.8 times as compared with the values obtained for the other regions. We attribute such an enhancement of critical current density to the vortex pinning at the surface step. Our study verifies the enhancement of the critical current density by the geometrical-type pinning and sheds light on the application of 2D superconductors.

Study of flux pinning mechanism under hydrostatic pressure in optimally doped (Ba,K)Fe2As2 single crystals

Strong pinning depends on the pinning force strength and number density of effective defects. Using the hydrostatic pressure method, we demonstrate here that hydrostatic pressure of 1.2 GPa can significantly enhance flux pinning or the critical current density (J_c) of optimally doped Ba_0.6K_0.4Fe₂As₂ crystals by a factor of up to 5 in both low and high fields, which is generally rare with other J_c enhancement techniques. At 4.1 K, high pressure can significantly enhance J_c from 5 × 10⁵A/cm² to nearly 10⁶A/cm² at 2 T, and from 2 × 10⁵A/cm² to nearly 5.5 × 10⁵A/cm² at 12 T. Our systematic analysis of the flux pinning mechanism indicates that both the pinning centre number density and the pinning force are greatly increased by the pressure and enhance the pinning. This study also shows that superconducting performance in terms of flux pinning or J_c for optimally doped superconducting materials can be further improved by using pressure.

First-order phase transition from the vortex liquid to an amorphous solid

We present a systematic study of the topology of the vortex solid phase in superconducting Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 samples with low doses of columnar defects. A new state of vortex matter imposed by the presence of geometrical contours associated with the random distribution of columns is found. The results show that the first-order liquid-solid transition in this vortex matter does not require a structural symmetry change.

Direct Observation of Vortex Dynamics in Superconducting Films with Regular Arrays of Defects

The microscopic mechanism of the matching effect in a superconductor, which manifested itself as the production of peaks or cusps in the critical current at specific values of the applied magnetic field, was investigated with Lorentz microscopy to allow direct observation of the behavior of vortices in a niobium thin film having a regular array of artificial defects. Vortices were observed to form regular and consequently rigid lattices at the matching magnetic field, at its multiples, and at its fractions. The dynamic observation furthermore revealed that vortices were most difficult to move at the matching field, whereas excess vortices moved easily.