Peak-effect and surface crystal-glass transition for surface-pinned vortex array

Bernard Plaçais (1) , Norbert Lutke-Entrup (1) , Joël Bellessa (1) , Patrice Mathieu (1) , Yvan Simon (1) , Edouard Sonin (2)

1 LPA - Laboratoire Pierre Aigrain
2 Racah Institute of Physics

We present a theoretical and experimental study of the peak effect in the surface pinning of vortices. It is associated with a sharp transition in the vortex slippage length which we relate to a crossover from a weakly disordered crystal to a surface glass state. Experiments are performed on ion-beam etched Nb crystals. The slippage length is deduced from 1kHz-1MHz linear ACpenetration depth measurements.

Mots clés: vortex matter; peak-effect; order-disorder transition

Domaines: Systèmes mésoscopiques et effet Hall quantique [cond-mat.mes-hall]

Bernard Plaçais, Norbert Lutke-Entrup, Joël Bellessa, Patrice Mathieu, Yvan Simon, et al.. Peak-effect and surface crystal-glass transition for surface-pinned vortex array. EPL - Europhysics Letters, 2004, 67, pp.655. ⟨hal-00001352⟩