2003/12/15 by Paolo Moretti, M. Carmen Miguel, M. -Carmen Miguel +2 · 3 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Superconducting Materials and Applications #cond-mat.stat-mech #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.92.257004
4 pages, 2 figures
arxiv created 2003/12/15 · openalex publication_date 2004/06/25 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We discuss the formation of a vortex polycrystal in type II superconductors from the competition between pinning and elastic forces. We compute the elastic energy of a deformed grain boundary, which is strongly nonlocal, and obtain the depinning stress for weak and strong pinning. Our estimates for the grain size dependence on the magnetic field strength are in good agreement with previous experiments on NbMo. Finally, we discuss the effect of thermal noise on grain growth.