Effect of Proton Irradiation in Thin-Film YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{7-\delta}$ Superconductor

TL;DR

This study examines how 0.6 MeV proton irradiation affects the superconducting properties of thin-film YBa2Cu3O7−δ, revealing a significant decrease in critical temperature and a better fit to d-wave Abrikosov-Gor'kov theory than electron irradiation.

Contribution

It demonstrates that proton irradiation induces defects in thin-film YBCO that align with the generalized d-wave Abrikosov-Gor'kov theory, contrasting previous electron irradiation results.

Findings

Proton irradiation drastically reduces Tc in thin-film YBCO.

Resistivity increases with defect formation during irradiation.

The Tc suppression aligns with the generalized d-wave Abrikosov-Gor'kov theory.

Abstract

We investigated the effect of 0.6 MeV proton irradiation on the superconducting and normal state properties of thin-film $\text{YBa}_{2}\text{Cu}_{3}\text{O}_{7-\delta}$ superconductors. A thin-film YBCO superconductor ($\approx$ 567 nm thick) was subject to a series of proton irradiations with a total fluence of $7.6\times10^{16}$ $\text{p/cm}^2$. Upon irradiation, $T_c$ was drastically decreased from 89.3 K towards zero with a corresponding increase in its normal state resistivity above $T_c$. This increase in resistivity which indicates the increase of defects inside the thin-film sample can be converted to the dimensionless scattering rate. We found that the relation between $T_c$ and dimensionless scattering rate obtained during proton irradiation approximates the generalized d-wave Abrikosov-Gor'kov theory better than the previous results obtained from electron irradiations. This is an unexpected result since the electron irradiation is known to be most effective to suppress superconductivity over other heavier ion irradiations such as proton irradiation. It suggests that the type of defects created by proton irradiation evolves from cascade defects (in bulk single crystals) to point-like defects (in thin-film single crystals) as the thickness decreases.