Suppression of matching field effects by splay and pinning energy dispersion in YBa_2Cu_3O_7 with columnar defects

Abstract

We report measurements of the irreversible magnetization M_i of a large number of YBa_2Cu_3O_7 single crystals with columnar defects (CD). Some of them exhibit a maximum in M_i when the density of vortices equals the density of tracks, at temperatures above 40K. We show that the observation of these matching field effects is constrained to those crystals where the orientational and pinning energy dispersion of the CD system lies below a certain threshold. The amount of such dispersion is determined by the mass and energy of the irradiation ions, and by the crystal thickness. Time relaxation measurements show that the matching effects are associated with a reduction of the creep rate, and occur deep into the collective pinning regime.

7 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. B

References in corpus (2)

• Evidence for vortex staircases in the whole angular range due to competing correlated pinning mechanisms
• Properties of the Bose glass phase in irradiated superconductors near the matching field

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• Ultradense Tailored Vortex Pinning Arrays in Superconducting YBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_{7-\delta }$ Thin Films Created by Focused He Ion Beam Irradiation for Fluxonics Applications
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• Vortex matching at 6 T in YBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_{7-\delta }$ thin films by imprinting a 20 nm-periodic pinning array with a focused helium ion beam
• Irreversible magnetization under rotating fields and lock-in effect on ErBa_2Cu_3O_7 single crystal with columnar defects
• Increase of YBa2Cu3O7 critical currents by Mo substitution and high pressure oxygen annealing