Irradiation-induced suppression of the critical temperature in high-Tc superconductors: Pair breaking versus phase fluctuations
L. A. Openov
Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, 115409 Moscow, Russia
PACS: 74.20.-z, 74.25.Fy, 74.62.Dh, 74.72.Bk
Abstract
Experiments on the irradiation-induced suppression of the critical
temperature in high-Tc superconductors are analyzed within the mean-field
Abrikosov-Gor'kov-like approach. It is shown that the experimental data
for YBa2Cu3O7-δ single crystals can be quantitatively
explained by the pair breaking effects under the assumption of the combined
effect of potential and spin-flip scattering on the critical temperature and
with account for a non-pure d-wave superconducting order parameter.