Static Friction as a Function of Waiting Time Probed by Dynamics of Driven Vortices in La2-xSrxCuO4 Thin Films

We investigated the dynamics of driven vortices in high-$T_c$ superconductor as an ideal model system to study the physics of friction. The waiting-time dependence of the maximum static friction force, $F_s(t_w)$, was measured in La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_4$ thin films with different structures, sample sizes and pinning force. We found various kinds of $F_s(t_w)$ in the $B$-$T$ phase diagram and in different types of samples. The results suggest that the relaxation by thermal fluctuation is strongly affected by the pinning strength, the vortex bundle size and the system size. Based on these results, we found crucial conditions to determine the validity of the Amontons-Coulomb's law, and proposed a criterion.
Comment: 5 pages, 1 table, 3 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett