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The aim of this work is to investigate the mechanisms controlling the current-carrying capability of YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7Ϫ␦ thin films. A comparison between the magnetic properties of a film with intrinsic grainboundary defects and two films crossed by columnar defects with different densities is presented. Such properties have been studied by means of ac susceptibility measurements, resistivity measurements, and structural characterizations. The Clem and Sanchez model ͓Phys. Rev. B 50, 9355 ͑1994͔͒ is used to extract critical current values from the susceptibility data. In the virgin film, correlated grain-boundary defects were created among islands with homogeneous size, by means of the appropriate modifications in the growth process. Columnar defects were produced through 0.25-GeV Au-ion irradiation. The central issue concerns the investigation of the plateaulike features characterizing the log-log field dependence of the critical current density, the analysis of the J c temperature dependence, and of the irreversibility line. An analytical expression of J c vs B is given in order to compare the main issues with the experimental data. This model suggests that the intergrain pinning dominates in the high-current/low-temperature regime through a network of frustrated Josephson junctions, while the intragrain pinning is effective near the irreversibility line.

We report on the analysis method to extract quantitative local electrodynamics in superconductors by means of the magneto-optical technique. First of all, we discuss the calibration procedure to convert the local light intensity values into magnetic induction field distribution and start focusing on the role played by the generally disregarded magnetic induction components parallel to the indicator film plane (in-plane field effect). To account for the reliability of the whole technique, the method used to reconstruct the electrical current density distribution is reported, together with a numerical test example. The methodology is applied to measure local magnetic field and current distributions on a typical YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7−x good quality film. We show how the in-plane field influences the MO measurements, after which we present an algorithm to account for the in-plane field components. The meaningful impact of the correction on the experimental results is shown. Afterwards, we discuss some aspects about the electrodynamics of the superconducting sample.