170 research outputs found
Critical Fields and Critical Currents in MgB2
We review recent measurements of upper (Hc2) and lower (Hc1) critical fields
in clean single crystals of MgB2, and their anisotropies between the two
principal crystallographic directions. Such crystals are far into the "clean
limit" of Type II superconductivity, and indeed for fields applied in the
c-direction, the Ginzburg-Landau parameter k is only about 3, just large enough
for Type II behaviour. Because m0Hc2 is so low, about 3 T for fields in the
c-direction, MgB2 has to be modified for it to become useful for high-current
applications. It should be possible to increase Hc2 by the introduction of
strong electron scattering (but because of the electronic structure and the
double gap that results, the scatterers will have to be chosen carefully). In
addition, pinning defects on a scale of a few nm will have to be engineered in
order to enhance the critical current density at high fields.Comment: BOROMAG Conference Invited paper. To appear in Supercond. Sci. Tec
Superconducting gap structure and pinning in disordered MgB2 films
We have performed a comparative study of two thin films of magnesium diboride
(MgB2) grown by different techniques. The critical current density at different
temperatures and magnetic fields was evaluated from magnetisation curves, the
structure of superconducting order parameter was obtained from point-contact
spectroscopy, and the scattering rates were evaluated by fitting the
temperature dependent normal-state resistivity to the two-band model. The films
have similar critical temperatures close to 39 K, but the upper critical fields
were different by a factor of 2 (5.2T and 2.5 T at 20 K). We have found that
the film with higher Hc2 also had stronger scattering in the sigma band and
smaller value of the superconducting gap in this band. As the scattering in
sigma band is primarily due to the defects in boron plane, our results are
consistent with the assumption that disordering the boron planes leads to
enhanced Hc2 and better pinning properties in magnetic field.Comment: Paper presented at EUCAS'0
Comparative study of in situ and ex situ MgB2 films deposited by pulsed laser deposition
Two types of MgB2 films were prepared by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) with
in situ and ex situ annealing processes respectively. Significant differences
in properties between the two types of films were found. The ex situ MgB2 film
has a Tc of 38.1K, while the in situ film has a depressed Tc of 34.5K. The
resistivity at 40K for the in situ film is larger than that of the ex situ film
by a factor of 6. The residual resistivity ratios (RRR) are 1.1 and 2.1 for the
in situ and ex situ films respectively. The Jc-H curves of the in situ film
show a much weaker field dependence than those of the ex situ film,
attributable to stronger flux pinning in the in situ film. The small-grain
feature and high oxygen level may be critical for the significant improvement
of Jc in the in situ annealed MgB2 film.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
Angular dependence of the bulk nucleation field Hc2 of aligned MgB2 crystallites
Studies on the new MgB2 superconductor, with a critical temperature Tc ~ 39
K, have evidenced its potential for applications although intense magnetic
relaxation effects limit the critical current density, Jc, at high magnetic
fields. This means that effective pinning centers must be added into the
material microstructure, in order to halt dissipative flux movements.
Concerning the basic microscopic mechanism to explain the superconductivity in
MgB2, several experimental and theoretical works have pointed to the relevance
of a phonon-mediated interaction, in the framework of the BCS theory. Questions
have been raised about the relevant phonon modes, and the gap and Fermi surface
anisotropies, in an effort to interpret spectroscopic and thermal data that
give values between 2.4 and 4.5 for the gap energy ratio. Preliminary results
on the anisotropy of Hc2 have shown a ratio, between the in-plane and
perpendicular directions, around 1.7 for aligned MgB2 crystallites and 1.8 for
epitaxial thin films. Here we show a study on the angular dependence of Hc2
pointing to a Fermi velocity anisotropy around 2.5. This anisotropy certainly
implies the use of texturization techniques to optimize Jc in MgB2 wires and
other polycrystalline components.Comment: 10 pages + 4 Figs.; Revised version accepted in Phys. Rev.
Suppression of Superconducting Critical Current Density by Small Flux Jumps in Thin Films
By doing magnetization measurements during magnetic field sweeps on thin
films of the new superconductor , it is found that in a low temperature
and low field region small flux jumps are taking place. This effect strongly
suppresses the central magnetization peak leading to reduced nominal
superconducting critical current density at low temperatures. A borderline for
this effect to occur is determined on the field-temperature (H-T) phase
diagram. It is suggested that the small size of the flux jumps in films is due
to the higher density of small defects and the relatively easy thermal
diffusion in thin films in comparison with bulk samples.Comment: 7 figures Phys. Rev. B accepted scheduled issue: 01 Feb 200
Enhancement of the high-field critical current density of superconducting MgB2 by proton irradiation
A relatively high critical temperature, Tc, approaching 40 K, places the
recently-discovered superconductor magnesium diboride (MgB2) intermediate
between the families of low- and copper-oxide-based high-temperature
superconductors (HTS). Supercurrent flow in MgB2 is unhindered by grain
boundaries, unlike the HTS materials. Thus, long polycrystalline MgB2
conductors may be easier to fabricate, and so could fill a potentially
important niche of applications in the 20 to 30 K temperature range. However,
one disadvantage of MgB2 is that in bulk material the critical current density,
Jc, appears to drop more rapidly with increasing magnetic field than it does in
the HTS phases. The magnitude and field dependence of Jc are related to the
presence of structural defects that can "pin" the quantised magnetic vortices
that permeate the material, and prevent them from moving under the action of
the Lorentz force. Vortex studies suggest that it is the paucity of suitable
defects in MgB2 that causes the rapid decay of Jc with field. Here we show that
modest levels of atomic disorder, induced by proton irradiation, enhance the
pinning, and so increase Jc significantly at high fields. We anticipate that
chemical doping or mechanical processing should be capable of generating
similar levels of disorder, and so achieve technologically-attractive
performance in MgB2 by economically-viable routes.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Nature (in press
Excess current in point contacts on two-band superconductor MgB in magnetic field
Series of characteristic and bias-dependent differential resistance
for point-contacts on the single crystals of two-band superconductor
MgB were measured in magnetic field up to 9 T. We have obtained magnetic
field dependences of the excess current on the curves and analyzed them
using Koshelev and Golubov (Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 90}, 177002 (2003))
theoretical results for the mixed state of a dirty two-band superconductor.
Introducing a simple model for the excess current in the point contact in the
mixed state our data can be qualitatively described utilizing theoretical
magnetic filed behavior of the and -band superconducting order
parameters and the corresponding averaged electronic density of states in
MgB.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figs, RevTex4; V2: plain text improved, BTK fit is added
to insets of Fig.
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