Strong pinning of vortices by antiferromagnetic domain boundaries in CeCo(In1−xCdx)5

Abstract

We have studied the isothermal magnetization $M(H)$ of CeCo( ${\mathrm{In}}_{1-x}$ Cd _x ) _5 with x = 0.0075 and 0.01 down to 50 mK. Pronounced field-history dependent phenomena occur in the coexistence regime of the superconducting and antiferromagnetic phases. At low-fields, a phenomenological model of magnetic-flux entry well explains $M(H)$ implying the dominance of bulk pinning effect. However, unless crystallographic quenched disorder is hysteretic, the asymmetric peak effect (ASPE) which appears at higher fields cannot be explained by the pinning of vortices due to material defects. Also, the temperature dependence of the ASPE deviates from the conventional scenario for the peak effect. Comparison of our thermodynamic phase diagrams with those from previous neutron scattering and magnetoresistance experiments indicates that the pinning of vortices takes place at the field-history dependent antiferromagnetic domain boundaries.

Keywords

• heavy-fermion superconductor
• antiferromagnetic domains
• isothermal magnetization
• peak effect