No Arabic abstract
Local magnetic field distribution B(r) in the mixed state of a boride superconductor, YB6, is studied by muon spin rotation (muSR). A comparative analysis using the modified London model and Ginzburg-Landau (GL) model indicates that the GL model exhibits better agreement with muSR data at higher fields, thereby demonstrating the importance of reproducing the field profile near the vortex cores when the intervortex distance becomes closer to the GL coherence length. The temperature and field dependence of magnetic penetration depth ($lambda$) does not show any hint of nonlocal effect nor of low-lying quasiparticle excitation. This suggests that the strong coupling of electrons to the rattling motion of Y ions in the boron cage suggested by bulk measurements gives rise to a conventional superconductivity with isotropic s-wave pairing. Taking account of the present result, a review is provided for probing the anisotropy of superconducting order parameters by the slope of $lambda$ against field.
We report a detailed $mu$SR study of the pressure evolution of the magnetic order in the manganese based pnictide MnP, which has been recently found to undergo a superconducting transition under pressure once the magnetic ground state is suppressed. Using the muon as a volume sensitive local magnetic probe, we identify a ferromagnetic state as well as two incommensurate helical states (with propagation vectors ${bf Q}$ aligned along the crystallographic $c-$ and $b-$directions, respectively) which transform into each other through first order phase transitions as a function of pressure and temperature. Our data appear to support that the magnetic state from which superconductivity develops at higher pressures is an incommensurate helical phase.
The internal field distribution in the vortex state of YBa2Cu3O6.60 is shown to be a sensitive measure of both the magnetic penetration depth and the vortex-core radius. The temperature dependence of the vortex core radius is found to be weaker than in the conventional superconductor NbSe2 and much weaker than theoretical predictions for an isolated vortex. The effective vortex-core radius decreases sharply with increasing H, whereas the penetration depth is found to be much stronger than in NbSe2.
We present a low-energy muon-spin-rotation study of the magnetic and superconducting properties of YBa2Cu3O7/PrBa2Cu3O7 trilayer and bilayer heterostructures. By determining the magnetic-field profiles throughout these structures we show that a finite superfluid density can be induced in otherwise semiconducting PrBa2Cu3O7 layers when juxtaposed to YBa2Cu3O7 electrodes while the intrinsic antiferromagnetic order is unaffected.
The Meissner effect has been directly demonstrated by depth-resolved muon spin rotation measurements in high-quality thin films of the T-structured cuprate, T-La$_{1.9}$Y$_{0.1}$CuO$_4$, to confirm bulk superconductivity ($T_csimeq21$ K) in its {sl undoped} state. The gradual expelling of an external magnetic field is observed over a depth range of $sim$100 nm in films with a thickness of 275(15) nm, from which the penetration depth is deduced to be 466(22) nm. Based on this result, we argue that the true ground state of the parent compound of the $n$-type cuprates is not a Mott insulator but a strongly correlated metal with colossal sensitivity to apical oxygen impurities.
Superconductors usually display either type-I or type-II superconductivity and the coexistence of these two types in the same material, for example at different temperatures is rare in nature. We the employed muon spin rotation (muSR) technique to unveil the superconducting phase diagram of the dodecaboride ZrB12 and obtained clear evidence of both type-I and type-II characteristics. Most importantly, we found a region showing unusual behavior where the usually mutually exclusive muSR signatures of type-I and type-II superconductivity coexist. We reproduced that behavior in theoretical modeling that required taking into account multiple bands and multiple coherence lengths, which suggests that material has one coherence length larger and another smaller than the magnetic field penetration length (the type-1.5 regime). At stronger fields, a footprint of the type-II mixed state showing square flux-line lattice was also obtained using neutron diffraction.