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Nanoscale strain-induced pair suppression as a vortex-pinning mechanism in high-temperature superconductors

Nature Materials volume 11, pages 329–336 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

Boosting large-scale superconductor applications require nanostructured conductors with artificial pinning centres immobilizing quantized vortices at high temperature and magnetic fields. Here we demonstrate a highly effective mechanism of artificial pinning centres in solution-derived high-temperature superconductor nanocomposites through generation of nanostrained regions where Cooper pair formation is suppressed. The nanostrained regions identified from transmission electron microscopy devise a very high concentration of partial dislocations associated with intergrowths generated between the randomly oriented nanodots and the epitaxial YBa2Cu3O7 matrix. Consequently, an outstanding vortex-pinning enhancement correlated to the nanostrain is demonstrated for four types of randomly oriented nanodot, and a unique evolution towards an isotropic vortex-pinning behaviour, even in the effective anisotropy, is achieved as the nanostrain turns isotropic. We suggest a new vortex-pinning mechanism based on the bond-contraction pairing model, where pair formation is quenched under tensile strain, forming new and effective core-pinning regions.

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Figure 1: XRD analysis to quantify the random and epitaxial fraction of nanodots in the nanocomposite films.
Figure 2: Nanostrain analysis of the nanocomposite films by X-ray diffraction line-broadening analysis.
Figure 3: Cross-sectional STEM micrograph of a YBCO nanocomposite thin film grown on STO along the [010] zone axis.
Figure 4: Strain maps determined by Peak Pairs Analysis of cross-sectional STEM images showing intergrowths.
Figure 5: Scaling of the pinning force and the mass anisotropy with the nanostrain.
Figure 6: High-field magnetoresistance measurements of Hc2 anisotropy in a 13 mol% BZO nanocomposite.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Ministerio Ciencia e Innovación (MAT2008-01022), Consolider NANOSELECT (CSD2007-00041), Generalitat de Catalunya (2009 SGR 770 and Xarmae) and the European Union (HIPERCHEM, NESPA and the European Research Council Starting Investigator Award). Work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division (M.V.). One of us (G.D.) acknowledges partial support from US Air Force grant FA 8655-10-1-3011. Work at Instituto Nanociencia Aragón—Laboratorio Microscopías Avanzadas was partially supported by NanoAraCat.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona, ICMAB-CSIC, Campus de la UAB, Catalonia, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain

    A. Llordés, A. Palau, J. Gázquez, M. Coll, R. Vlad, A. Pomar, J. Arbiol, R. Guzmán, S. Ye, V. Rouco, F. Sandiumenge, S. Ricart, T. Puig & X. Obradors

  2. Materials Science & Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA

    J. Gázquez & M. Varela

  3. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), 08010 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

    J. Arbiol

  4. Laboratoire de Cristallographie et Sciences des Matériaux, CRISMAT, ENSICAEN, IUT-Caen, Université de Caen Basse-Normandie, 6 boulevard Maréchal Juin, 14050 Caen Cedex 4, France

    D. Chateigner

  5. INPAC-Institute for Nanoscale Physics and Chemistry, Pulsed Field Group, K.U. Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200 D, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium

    J. Vanacken, J. Gutiérrez & V. Moshchalkov

  6. School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel

    G. Deutscher

  7. Universidad de Zaragoza, Instituto de Nanociencia de Aragon, Zaragoza 50018, Spain

    C. Magen

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  1. A. Llordés
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Contributions

A.L., M.C., R.V., S.Y. and S.R. carried out the synthesis and basic structural characterization of the materials; A.L. and D.C. carried out the advanced analysis of texture and nanostrain of the films through X-ray diffraction; A. Palau, A. Pomar and V.R. made and analysed magnetic and transport measurements; A. Palau, J. Gutiérrez, J.V. and V.M. were in charge of the high-magnetic-field measurements and the corresponding data analysis; J. Gázquez, J.A., R.G., F.S., M.V. and C.M. made different contributions to the TEM observations and the corresponding image analysis and interpretation; G.D. was involved in the theoretical analysis and contributed to the interpretation of the experimental data; A.L. and J. Gázquez wrote parts of the Supplementary Information; T.P. and X.O. designed and supervised the experiments and the theoretical analysis, coordinated the data interpretation and wrote the manuscript. All the authors participated in the correction of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to X. Obradors.

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Llordés, A., Palau, A., Gázquez, J. et al. Nanoscale strain-induced pair suppression as a vortex-pinning mechanism in high-temperature superconductors. Nature Mater 11, 329–336 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3247

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