Flux Pinning and Forced Vortex Entanglement

by Splayed Columnar Defects


Terence Hwa, Pierre Le Doussal, David R. Nelson and Valerii M. Vinokur



Abstract

        We propose controlled splay of artificial columnar defects in cuprate super- conductors as a strategy to enhance transport properties in a field compared to parallel columns. The theory predicts a new ``splayed glass'' phase character- ized by a reduced flux creep, an entangled ground state, and an astronomically slow response to an applied transverse field.


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