Averaged effective pinning potential in YBCO single crystals near Tc.

The dynamics of magnetic flux trapped in low dc magnetic fields (of the order of the Earth's field) was for the first time studied experimentally in single-crystal YBCO samples with unidirectional twin boundaries in the temperature range near Tc (0.8 < T/Tc < 0.99). Strong pinning in the system of unidirectional planar defects was demonstrated, and a significant deviation from monotonous behavior was established for the averaged effective pinning potential Up(T) for the trapped flux of low density. In order to compare different methods of Jc determination, the field dependences of the magnetization loop width M(H), which are related to the effective pinning and Jc, were obtained, and resistive measurements on microbridges made from the same single crystals were carried out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]