Anomalous reduction in the long-time flux creep relaxation in superconducting Ca10(Pt4As8)((Fe1−x Ptx )2As2)5 (x ≈ 0.05) single crystals

Abstract

We report the vortex dynamics of superconducting a Ca10(Pt4As8)((Fe1−xPtx)2As2)5 (x ≈ 0.05) single crystal with Tc = 26 K investigated by performing magnetic measurements. The field dependence of the magnetization displays a second peak (SPM), typically related to a crossover between elastic and plastic vortex relaxation in a weak pinning scenario. Long-time flux creep relaxation measurements for fields smaller that of the SPM show that the vortex dynamics can be separated in two different regions. For magnetic fields smaller than the lower end of the SPM, glassy relaxation (with a characteristic glassy exponent μ) is observed. For magnetic fields between the lower end and the SPM, the flux creep rate decreases systematically to values below to the ones predicted by the collective theory. This effect can be understood by considering a stable vortex lattice configuration. As the field position of the SPM can be adjusted by modifying the quenched potential, our results suggest that extremely low flux creep relaxation rate may be tuned in many other superconducting materials.