Effect of double pinning mechanism in BSO-added GdBa 2 Cu 3 O 7-x thin films

We investigated the effect of self-assembled BSO nano-defects as pinning centers in BSO-added GdBCO films when the thicknesses of films were varied. 3.5 vol. % BSO-added GdBCO films with varying thicknesses from 200 nm to 1000 nm were deposited on SrTiO3 (STO) substrate by using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) process. For the films with thicknesses of 400 nm and 600 nm, 'anomaly shoulders' in J(c) - H characteristic curves were observed near the matching field. The anomaly shoulders appeared in the field dependence of Jc may be attributed to the existence of double pinning mechanisms in thin films. The fit to the pinning force density as a function of reduced field h (H/Hirr) using the Dew-Hughes' scaling law shows that both the 400 nm- and the 600 nm-thick films have double pinning mechanisms while the other films have a single pinning mechanism. These results indicate that the self-assembled property of BSO result in different role as pinning centers with different thickness.