Intrinsic pinning in layered antiferromagnetic superconductor
Abstract The intrinsic pinning in high-temperature superconductors with long range antiferromagnetic order of rare earth ions confined to the isolating planes is described. The interaction of antiferromagnetic and superconducting subsystems in the mixed state may lead to the creation of spin–flop domain along the vortex core. It is shown that the behaviour of several physical quantities such as magnetization, activation energy, current–voltage characteristic and flux creep changes when the direction of the external field changes in the basal a b -plane. It is also shown that the decay of the trapped flux is a logarithmic function of time.