Size-dependent transformation from triangular to rectangular fluxon lattice in Bi-2212 mesa structures

We present a systematic study of the field and size dependencies of the static fluxon lattice configuration in Bi-2212 intrinsic Josephson junctions and investigate conditions needed for the formation of a rectangular fluxon lattice required for a high power flux-flow oscillator. We fabricate junctions of different sizes from Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x and Bi1.75Pb0.25Sr2CaCu2O8+x single crystals using the mesa technique and study the Fraunhofer-like modulation of the critical current with magnetic field. The modulation can be divided into three regions depending on the formed fluxon lattice. At low field, no periodic modulation and no ordered fluxon lattice is found. At intermediate fields, modulation with half-flux quantum periodicity due to a triangular lattice is seen. At high fields, the rectangular lattice gives integer flux quantum periodicity. We present these fields in dependence on the sample size and conclude that the transitions between the regions depend only on lambdaJ(Jc) and occur at about 0.4 and 1.3 fluxons per lambdaJ, respectively. These numbers are universal for the measured samples and are consistent with performed numerical simulations.Comment: Conference paper LT2

Persistent electrical doping of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x mesa structures

Application of a significantly large bias voltage to small Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x mesa structures leads to persistent doping of the mesas. Here we employ this effect for analysis of the doping dependence of the electronic spectra of Bi-2212 single crystals by means of intrinsic tunneling spectroscopy. We are able to controllably and reversibly change the doping state of the same single crystal from underdoped to overdoped state, without changing its chemical composition. It is observed that such physical doping is affecting superconductivity in Bi-2212 similar to chemical doping by oxygen impurities: with overdoping the critical temperature and the superconducting gap decrease, with underdoping the c-axis critical current rapidly decreases due to progressively more incoherent interlayer tunneling and the pseudogap rapidly increases, indicative for the presence of the critical doping point. We distinguish two main mechanisms of persistent electric doping: (i) even in voltage contribution, attributed to a charge transfer effect, and (ii) odd in voltage contribution, attributed to reordering of oxygen impurities

Photoconductivity effects in mixed-phase BSCCO whiskers

We report on combined photoconductivity and annealing experiments in whisker-like crystals of the Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O (BSCCO) high-Tc superconductor. Both single-phase Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+\delta (Bi-2212) samples and crystals of the mixed phases Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+x (Bi-2223)/Bi-2212 have been subjected to annealing treatments at 90{\deg}C in air in a few hours steps, up to a maximum total annealing time of 47 h. At every step, samples have been characterized by means of electrical resistance vs temperature (R vs T) and resistance vs time at fixed temperature (R vs t) measurements, both in the dark and under illumination with a UV-VIS halogen arc lamp. A careful comparison of the results from the two techniques has shown that, while for single-phase samples no effect is recorded, for mixed-phase samples an enhancement in the conductivity that increases with increasing the annealing time is induced by the light at the nominal temperature T = 100 K, i.e. at an intermediate temperature between the critical temperatures of the two phases. A simple pseudo-1D model based on the Kudinov's scheme [Kudinov et al., Phys. Rev. B 47, 9017-28, (1993)] has been developed to account for the observed effects, which is based on the existence of Bi-2223 filaments embedded in the Bi-2212 matrix and on the presence of electronically active defects at their interfaces. This model reproduces fairly well the photoconductive experimental results and shows that the length of the Bi-2223 filaments decreases and the number of defects increases with increasing the annealing time.Comment: 30 page

Vortex Properties from Resistive Transport Measurements on Extreme Type-II Superconductors

NR 2014080

Superconductivity at 1 K in Y-Au-Si quasicrystal approximants

We report the structural and physical properties of two Y-Au-Si (YAS) compounds, Y14.1Au69.2Si16.7 and Y15.4Au68.6Si16.1, which are 1/1 approximant crystals of a Tsai-type quasicrystal without intrinsic magnetic moments. The compounds differ by the presence of either a tetrahedron (Au,Si)4 or a single Y atom at the center of their characteristic structural building unit consisting of concentric polyhedral shells. Both compounds exhibit bulk superconductivity, which seems to be of a conventional type-II BCS type. The compound with Y atoms at the cluster center has a slightly higher transition temperature with a sharper step in the specific heat than the compound with tetrahedral units. We discuss the occurrence of this superconducting state in the light of the specific structural and physical properties of these quasicrystal approximants

Examination of the critical behavior and magnetocaloric effect of the ferromagnetic Gd-Au-Si quasicrystal approximants

We investigate the critical behavior and magnetocaloric effects of the Gd-Au-Si (GAS) ferromagnetic quasicrystal approximants, Gd13.7Au72.7Si13.6 [referred to as GAS(0)] and Gd15.4Au68.6Si16.0 [GAS(100)]. The former is a conventional Tsai-type 1/1 approximant crystal, while the latter has a slightly different atomic decoration from the Tsai type (thus referred to as “pseudo-Tsai” type). Their critical exponents at the ferromagnetic transitions are close to those of the mean-field theory. Both GAS systems exhibit an interesting magnetic-field dependence of the specific heat, which is reflected in the behavior of their magnetocaloric effect (MCE). The MCE is characterized by an adiabatic cooling (heating) effect over a relatively broad temperature range below ∼30 K, which stems from a broad feature in the specific heat