Experimental evidence for the vortex glass phase in untwinned, proton irradiated YBa2Cu3O7-delta

Phys Rev Lett. 2000 Jun 19;84(25):5852-5. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.5852.

Abstract

We report on magnetoresistance measurements of the effects of 9 MeV proton irradiation on a clean, untwinned single crystal of YBa2Cu3O7-delta. For the first time, evidence for a vortex glass transition is detected in an untwinned single crystal of YBa2Cu3O7-delta with induced pointlike disorder, in which the first order vortex melting transition is completely suppressed after proton irradiation. Our results suggest that a sufficiently high pinning disorder is required in order for the vortex glass phase to be observed.