Thermal Suppression of Strong Pinning
Abstract
We study vortex pinning in layered type-II superconductors in the presence of uncorrelated disorder for decoupled layers. Introducing the new concept of variable-range thermal smoothing, we describe the interplay between strong pinning and thermal fluctuations. We discuss the appearance and analyze the evolution in temperature of two distinct nonlinear features in the current-voltage characteristic. We show how the combination of layering and electromagnetic interactions leads to a sharp jump in the critical current for the onset of glassy response as a function of temperature.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review Letters
- Pub Date:
- July 1998
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.906
- arXiv:
- arXiv:cond-mat/9803119
- Bibcode:
- 1998PhRvL..81..906W
- Keywords:
-
- Condensed Matter - Superconductivity
- E-Print:
- LaTeX 2.09, 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett