Flux creep relaxation in single crystal Hg-1201

Magnetization measurements on a single crystal of the high-Tc cuprate HgBa₂CuO₄ (Hg-1201) are performed for the two field orientations B||c and B||(a,b). Besides zero-field-cooling (zfc) – field-cooling (fc) and magnetization studies, the flux creep relaxation is determined. The zfc curves exhibit pronounced step-like anomalies in the mixed state above the lower critical field B_c1. They are interpreted as those points in the phase diagram where the penetrating flux fronts meet at the center of the sample. In order to obtain more information about the flux pinning mechanism flux creep relaxation experiments are performed at different temperatures in magnetic fields of 0.15 and 2 T. The resulting supercurrent dependence on the mean activation energy is analysed according to the collective pinning theory which predicts U ∝ ((j/j_c)^−μ −1). The μ-values for B||c are 0.5 at higher temperatures and 2 at 5 K, and they vary between 1.1 and 1.5 for B||(a,b). The observed behaviour is quite different from that found for powder samples.