Electrical transport, magnetic, and structural properties of the vortex lattice of V_3Si in the vicinity of the peak effect

Abstract

The peak effect in critical current density J_c is investigated by studying the flux dynamics in V_3Si using bulk magnetometry, small-angle neutron scattering, and transport measurements on clean single-crystal samples from the same ingot. For a field-cooled history, well-defined structure in the vortex lattice was found for fields and temperatures (H,T) below the peak-effect line H_P(T); above this line, the structure disappeared. History-dependent, metastable disorder is found only for (H,T) below H_P(T) but the vortex system is reproducibly re-ordered either by field-cooling or a low-frequency, pulsed "shaking" transport current. The latter is shown to attain Bardeen-Stephen flux flow. In addition, flux flow is observed at H_P(T) at high current levels. The results, though novel, support the traditional picture of H_P(T) as an order-disorder transition due to the competition between elasticity and pinning.

arXiv comment24 pages, 10 figs, 525 KB PDF; submitted to Phys. Rev. B

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Effects of Pauli paramagnetism on superconducting vortex phase diagram in strong fields
• Fate of the Peak Effect in a Type-II Superconductor: Multicriticality in the Bragg-Glass Transition
• Peak effect in YBCO crystals: Statics and dynamics of the vortex lattice
• Flux quanta driven by high-density currents in low-impurity V3Si and LuNi2B2C: free flux flow and flux-core size effect
• Theoretical Description of Nearly Discontinuous Transition in Superconductors with Paramagnetic Depairing