Fluctuations and Intrinsic Pinning in Layered Superconductors

TL;DR

This paper explores the phase transitions and transport properties of layered superconductors, revealing stable smectic phases, effects of disorder, and the impact of tilting magnetic fields on their structural and electrical behavior.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of flux liquid to smectic crystal transitions, including effects of disorder and magnetic field orientation, which advances understanding of layered superconductor phases.

Findings

Stable smectic phases occur when the order is commensurate with layers.

Tilted and incommensurate phases are also identified.

Permeation modes cause small resistivity and finite tilt modulus.

Abstract

A flux liquid can condense into a smectic crystal in a pure layered superconductors with the magnetic field oriented nearly parallel to the layers. If the smectic order is commensurate with the layering, this crystal is {\sl stable} to point disorder. By tilting and adjusting the magnitude of the applied field, both incommensurate and tilted smectic and crystalline phases are found. We discuss transport near the second order smectic freezing transition, and show that permeation modes lead to a small non--zero resistivity and large but finite tilt modulus in the smectic crystal.