Setup for studying nonlinear magnetic properties of high-temperature superconductors with the aid of magnetization harmonics

Abstract

A setup for measuring cophasal and quadrature components of higher harmonics of an electromotive-force signal of the response of a high-temperature superconductor makes it possible to study nonlinear magnetic properties of superconductors in variable magnetic fields of up to 1 kOe and constant magnetic fields of up to 10 T in the temperature range of 5–300 K. This setup was used to measure the temperature dependences of the absolute values of the real and imaginary parts of the first and third harmonics of the magnetization of textured Yba2Cu3O7 − x polycrystalline samples in the temperature range of 77–220 K at various values of variable and constant magnetic fields. An analysis of resulting data made it possible to reveal the presence of different dynamical modes of the magnetic flux in YBa2Cu3O7 − x that were dominant in different temperature ranges. The nonlinearity of the magnetization of YBa2Cu3O7 − x (the appearance of higher harmonics) was observed up to temperatures in the range of T = 103–112 K, which were substantially higher than the temperature of the transition of this compound to a superconducting state. The observed feature in the magnetization of YBa2Cu3O7 − x was associated with the emergence of a pseudogap state in this compound.