Palau A, Durrell J H, Macmanus-Driscoll J L, Harrington S, Puig T, Sandiumenge F, Obradors X, Blamire M G
Department of Materials Science, University of Cambridge, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QZ, United Kingdom.
Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Dec 22;97(25):257002. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.257002. Epub 2006 Dec 18.
The critical current (Jc) of highly twinned YBa2Cu3O7 films has been measured as a function of temperature, magnetic field, and angle. For much of the parameter space we observe a strong suppression of Jc for fields in the twin boundary (TB) directions; this is quantitatively modeled as flux-cutting-mediated vortex channeling. For certain temperatures and fields a crossover occurs to a regime in which channeling is blocked and the TBs act as planar pinning centers so that TB pinning enhances the overall Jc. In this regime, intrinsic pinning along the TBs is comparable to that between the twins.
