4 research outputs found
Evidence for two distinct scales of current flow in polycrystalline Sm and Nd iron oxypnictides
Early studies have found quasi-reversible magnetization curves in
polycrystalline bulk rare-earth iron oxypnictides that suggest either
wide-spread obstacles to intergranular current or very weak vortex pinning. In
the present study of polycrystalline samarium and neodymium rare-earth iron
oxypnictide samples made by high pressure synthesis, the hysteretic
magnetization is significantly enhanced. Magneto optical imaging and study of
the field dependence of the remanent magnetization as a function of particle
size both show that global currents over the whole sample do exist but that the
intergranular and intragranular current densities have distinctively different
temperature dependences and differ in magnitude by about 1000. Assuming that
the highest current density loops are restricted to circulation only within
grains leads to values of ~5 MA/cm2 at 5 K and self field, while whole-sample
current densities, though two orders of magnitude lower are 1000-10000 A/cm2,
some two orders of magnitude higher than in random polycrystalline cuprates. We
cannot yet be certain whether this large difference in global and intragrain
current density is intrinsic to the oxypnictides or due to extrinsic barriers
to current flow, because the samples contain significant second phase, some of
which wets the grain boundaries and produces evidences of SNS proximity effect
in the whole sample critical current.Comment: 28 pages, 14 figure