Abstract
The electromagnetic properties of type-II superconductors depend on vortices—magnetic flux lines whose motion introduces dissipation that can be mitigated by pinning from material defects. The material disorder landscape is tuned by the choice of materials growth technique and incorporation of impurities that serve as vortex pinning centers. For example, metal organic deposition (MOD) and pulsed laser deposition (PLD) produce high-quality superconducting films with uncorrelated versus correlated disorder, respectively. Here, we study vortex dynamics in PLD-grown EuBa2Cu3Oy films containing varying concentrations of BaHfO3 inclusions and compare our results with those of MOD-grown (Y,Gd)Ba2Cu3Oy films. Despite both systems exhibiting behavior consistent with strong pinning theory, which predicts the critical current density Jc based on vortex trapping by randomly distributed spherical inclusions, we find striking differences in the vortex dynamics owing to the correlated versus uncorrelated disorder. Specifically, we find that the EuBa2Cu3Oy films grown without inclusions exhibit surprisingly slow vortex creep, comparable to the slowest creep rates achieved in (Y,Gd)Ba2Cu3Oy films containing high concentrations of BaHfO3. Whereas adding inclusions to (Y,Gd)Ba2Cu3Oy is effective in slowing creep, BaHfO3 increases creep in EuBa2Cu3Oy even while concomitantly improving Jc. Lastly, we find evidence of variable range hopping and that Jc is maximized at the BaHfO3 concentration that hosts creep of large vortex bundles or a Bose glass state.
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Data availability
The data supporting the findings of this study are available on Mendeley Data (https://doi.org/10.17632/z7t5jtyvmw.2) as a zip file. This includes Origin files (.opju) that contain raw and processed data spreadsheets for all the samples and figures used in this paper, which can be opened using Origin Viewer, a free application that permits viewing and copying of data contained in Origin project files. README files are also included to guide the reader about the contents of each folder and provide captions and explanations for the corresponding data files.
Code availability
The custom Python codes used to process the raw data are available on Mendeley Data (https://doi.org/10.17632/z7t5jtyvmw.2) as a zip file. README files are included to guide the reader about the contents of each folder and provide captions and explanations for the corresponding data files. JupyterLab version 4.0.10 and Python version 3.11.5 are used.
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Acknowledgements
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grants DMR-1905909 and DMR-2330562 at the University of Washington (S.E.), as well as partial support through the University of Washington Materials Research Science and Engineering Center under grant DMR-2308979 (J.L.). We thank Sean Suh for performing some preliminary magnetization measurements. Work at Seikei University (M.M.) was supported by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) Fusion Oriented Research for disruptive Science and Technology (FOREST; grant No. JPMJFR202G, Japan). A part of this work at Seikei University was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI with No. 23K26147 and No.23H01453. The work at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) was supported by NEDO. No competing interests are declared by all authors.
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S.E. and M.M. conceived and designed the experiment. M.M., A.I. and T.I. grew the (Y,Gd)BCO and EuBCO films. D.Y. and T.K. performed microstructural studies. J.L. performed magnetization studies and data analysis. S.E. determined data analysis procedures, S.E. and J.L. thoroughly reviewed the data analysis. S.E. and J.L. wrote the manuscript.
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Liu, J., Miura, M., Yokoe, D. et al. Higher critical currents yet faster vortex creep in EuBa2Cu3Oy films containing coherent artificial pinning centers. Commun Mater (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43246-025-01054-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43246-025-01054-0
