Experimental evidence for the vortex glass phase in untwinned, proton irradiated YBa2Cu3O7-delta.
We report on magnetoresistance measurements of the effects of 9 MeV proton irradiation on a clean, untwinned single crystal of YBa2Cu3O7-delta. For the first time, evidence for a vortex glass transition is detected in an untwinned single crystal of YBa2Cu3O7-delta with induced pointlike disorder, in which the first order vortex melting transition is completely suppressed after proton irradiation. Our results suggest that a sufficiently high pinning disorder is required in order for the vortex glass phase to be observed.
Petrean
A M
AM
Department of Physics, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan 49008 and and Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA.
Paulius
L M
LM
Kwok
W K
WK
Fendrich
J A
JA
Crabtree
G W
GW