Universal lower limit on vortex creep in superconductors
Source abstract
Abstract
Superconductors are excellent testbeds for studying vortices, topological excitations that also appear in superfluids, liquid crystals and Bose-Einstein condensates. Vortex motion can be disruptive; it can cause phase transitions, glitches in pulsars, and losses in superconducting microwave circuits, and it limits the current-carrying capacity of superconductors. Understanding vortex dynamics is fundamentally and technologically important, and the competition between thermal energy and energy barriers defined by material disorder is not completely understood. Specifically, early measurements of thermally activated vortex motion (creep) in iron-based superconductors unveiled fast rates (S) comparable to measurements of YBa 2Cu3O7-δ (refs ,,,,,). This was puzzling because S is thought to somehow correlate with the Ginzburg number (Gi), and Gi is significantly lower in most iron-based superconductors than in YBa 2Cu3O7-δ. Here, we report very slow creep in BaFe 2(As0.67P0.33)2 films, and propose the existence of a universal minimum realizable S ∼ Gi1/2(T/Tc) (Tc is the superconducting transition temperature) that has been achieved in our films and few other materials, and is violated by none. This limitation provides new clues about designing materials with slow creep and the interplay between material parameters and vortex dynamics.
Source: europepmc · Quality: candidate unverified · Source record ↗
Research context
OpenAlex topics: Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism · Iron-based superconductors research · Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials
SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.
References (36)
Show source-provided references
1. Lin, S.-Z. et al. Topological defects as relics of emergent continuous symmetry and Higgs condensation of disorder in ferroelectrics. Nat. Phys. 10, 970–977 (2014).10.1038/nphys3142 ↗
2. Kawaler, S. D., Novikow, I. & Srinivasan, G. Stellar Remnants (Springer-Verlag, 1995).
3. Song, C., Defeo, M. P., Yu, K. & Plourde, B. L. T. Reducing microwave loss in superconducting resonators due to trapped vortices. Appl. Phys. Lett. 95, 232501 (2009).10.1063/1.3271523 ↗
4. Foltyn, S. R. et al. Materials science challenges for high-temperature superconducting wire. Nat. Mater. 6, 631–642 (2007).10.1038/nmat1989 ↗
5. Sun, Y. et al. Magnetic relaxation and collective vortex creep in FeTe0.6Se0.4 single crystal. Europhys. Lett. 103, 57013 (2013).10.1209/0295-5075/103/57013 ↗
6. Haberkorn, N., Eom, M. J., You, J. S., Kim, J. & Kim, J. S. Critical current densities and flux creep rates in near optimally doped BaFe2−xRuxAs2 (x ≈ 0.7) single crystals. Solid State Commun. 231–232, 26–30 (2016).10.1016/j.ssc.2016.01.020 ↗
7. Shlyk, L. et al. Crystal structure and superconducting properties of hole-doped Ca0.89Na0.11FFeAs single crystals. Supercond. Sci. Technol. 27, 044011 (2014).10.1088/0953-2048/27/4/044011 ↗
8. Haberkorn, N. et al. Strong pinning and elastic to plastic vortex crossover in Na-doped CaFe2As2 single crystals. Phys. Rev. B 84, 094522 (2011).10.1103/PhysRevB.84.094522 ↗
9. Sun, Y. et al. Critical current density, vortex dynamics, and phase diagram of single-crystal FeSe. Phys. Rev. B 92, 144509 (2015).10.1103/PhysRevB.92.144509 ↗
10. Sun, Y. et al. Enhancement of critical current density and mechanism of vortex pinning in H+-irradiated FeSe single crystal. Appl. Phys. Express 8, 113102 (2015).10.7567/APEX.8.113102 ↗
11. Blatter, G., Feigel’man, M. V., Geshkenbein, V. B., Larkin, A. I. & Vinokur, V. M. Vortices in high-temperature superconductors. Rev. Mod. Phys. 66, 1125–1388 (1994).10.1103/RevModPhys.66.1125 ↗
12. Kurth, F. et al. Unusually high critical current of clean P-doped BaFe2As2 single crystalline thin film. Appl. Phys. Lett. 106, 072602 (2015).10.1063/1.4908257 ↗
13. Miura, M. et al. Strongly enhanced flux pinning in one-step deposition of BaFe(As0.66P0.33)2 superconductor films with uniformly dispersed BaZrO3 nanoparticles. Nat. Commun. 4, 2499 (2013).10.1038/ncomms3499 ↗
14. Hashimoto, K. et al. Line nodes in the energy gap of superconducting BaFe2(As1−xPx)2 . Phys. Rev. B 81, 220501 (2010).10.1103/PhysRevB.81.220501 ↗
15. Tamegai, T. et al. Effects of particle irradiations on vortex states in iron-based superconductors. Supercond. Sci. Technol. 25, 084008 (2012).10.1088/0953-2048/25/8/084008 ↗
16. Demirdis, S. et al. Disorder, critical currents, and vortex pinning energies in isovalently substituted BaFe2(As1−xPx)2 . Phys. Rev. B 87, 094506 (2013).10.1103/PhysRevB.87.094506 ↗
17. Miura, M. et al. Anisotropy and superconducting properties of BaFe2(As1−xPx)2 films with various phosphorus contents. Appl. Phys. Express 6, 93101 (2013).10.7567/APEX.6.093101 ↗
18. Awaji, S. et al. Jc and Bi properties of Sm1+xBa2−xCu3Oy films with nano-particles. Physica C 463–465, 669–673 (2007).10.1016/j.physc.2007.01.046 ↗
19. Bennemann, K.-H. & Ketterson, J. B. Superconductivity: Volume 1: Conventional and Unconventional Superconductors (Springer Science & Business Media, 2008).10.1007/978-3-540-73253-2 ↗
20. Haberkorn, N. et al. Enhancement of the critical current density by increasing the collective pinning energy in heavy ion irradiated Co-doped BaFe2As2 single crystals. Supercond. Sci. Technol. 28, 055011 (2015).10.1088/0953-2048/28/5/055011 ↗
21. Hänisch, J. et al. High field superconducting properties of Ba(Fe1−xCox)2As2 thin films. Sci. Rep. 5, 17363 (2015).10.1038/srep17363 ↗
22. Zehetmayer, M. How the vortex lattice of a superconductor becomes disordered: a study by scanning tunneling spectroscopy. Sci. Rep. 5, 09244 (2015).10.1038/srep09244 ↗
23. Gurevich, A. Iron-based superconductors at high magnetic fields. Rep. Prog. Phys. 74, 124501 (2011).10.1088/0034-4885/74/12/124501 ↗
24. Blatter, G., Geshkenbein, V. B. & Koopmann, J. A. G. Weak to strong pinning crossover. Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 067009 (2004).10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.067009 ↗
25. Malozemoff, A. P. & Fisher, M. P. A. Universality in the current decay and flux creep of Y–Ba–Cu–O high-temperature superconductors. Phys. Rev. B 42, 6784–6786 (1990).10.1103/PhysRevB.42.6784 ↗
26. Koshelev, A. E. & Kolton, A. B. Theory and simulations on strong pinning of vortex lines by nanoparticles. Phys. Rev. B 84, 104528 (2011).10.1103/PhysRevB.84.104528 ↗
27. Wimbush, S. Applied Superconductivity: Handbook on Devices and Applications, Volume 1 (Wiley, 2015).
28. Kim, J. et al. Strong magnetic field dependence of critical current densities and vortex activation energies in an anisotropic clean MgB2 thin film. Solid State Commun. 204, 56–60 (2014).10.1016/j.ssc.2014.11.015 ↗
29. Thompson, J. R. et al. Vortex pinning and slow creep in high-Jc MgB2 thin films: a magnetic and transport study. Supercond. Sci. Technol. 18, 970–976 (2005).10.1088/0953-2048/18/7/008 ↗
30. Reichhardt, C. & Reichhardt, C. J. O. Depinning and nonequilibrium dynamic phases of particle assemblies driven over random and ordered substrates: a review. Rep. Prog. Phys. 80, 026501 (2017).10.1088/1361-6633/80/2/026501 ↗
31. Pramanik, A. K. et al. Fishtail effect and vortex dynamics in LiFeAs single crystals. Phys. Rev. B 83, 094502 (2011).10.1103/PhysRevB.83.094502 ↗
32. Zhou, W., Xing, X., Wu, W., Zhao, H. & Shi, Z. Second magnetization peak effect, vortex dynamics, and flux pinning in 112-type superconductor Ca0.8La0.2Fe1−xCoxAs2 . Sci. Rep. 6, 22278 (2016).10.1038/srep22278 ↗
33. Eley, S. et al. Decoupling and tuning competing effects of different types of defects on flux creep in irradiated YBa2Cu3O7−δ coated conductors. Supercond. Sci. Technol. 30, 015010 (2017).10.1088/0953-2048/30/1/015010 ↗
34. Bean, C. P. Magnetization of high-field superconductors. Rev. Mod. Phys. 36, 31–39 (1964).10.1103/RevModPhys.36.31 ↗
35. Gyorgy, E. M., Van Dover, R. B., Jackson, K. A., Schneemeyer, L. F. & Waszczak, J. V. Anisotropic critical currents in Ba2YCu3O7 analyzed using an extended Bean model. Appl. Phys. Lett. 55, 283–285 (1989).10.1063/1.102387 ↗
36. Yeshurun, Y., Malozemoff, A. P. & Shaulov, A. Magnetic relaxation in high-temperature superconductors. Rev. Mod. Phys. 68, 911–949 (1996).10.1103/RevModPhys.68.911 ↗