Anomalous Hall effect in the mixed state of high-temperature superconductors

Abstract

The Hall effect in the mixed state of high- T c superconductors (HTSC) is of an anomalous nature: near the transition there is a range of temperatures and of magnetic fields where the sign of the Hall effect is opposite to that in the normal state. The universality of the phenomenon in question is indicative of its connection with some general properties of the mixed state of type-II superconductors, namely, with peculiarities of motion of magnetic flux vortex lines (vortices) in these superconductors. This work puts forward a model accounting for a number of vortex motion specific features and providing a possibility to obtain the characteristics of the anomalous Hall effect. The work is based on the phenomenologically generalized results of Bardeen-Stephen and Nozieres-Vinen, supplemented with an allowance for a new mechanism of vortex “friction” associated with Andreev electron reflection on the interface between the normal core and the superconducting periphery of a vortex. Within the framework of the model suggested, magnetic field (and temperature) dependences of the longitudinal and Hall resistances of a mixed state superconductor have been calculated at temperatures nearing T c. At certain quite realistic parameters which define the forces acting on the vortices, there is a range of magnetic fields and temperatures where the sign of the Hall effect is opposite to that in the normal state. The lower limit of this range is the irreversibility line and the upper critical field.