Pinning force is a

force In physics, a force is an influence that can cause an Physical object, object to change its velocity unless counterbalanced by other forces. In mechanics, force makes ideas like 'pushing' or 'pulling' mathematically precise. Because the Magnitu ...

acting on a pinned object from a pinning center. In

solid state physics Solid-state physics is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as solid-state chemistry, quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism, and metallurgy. It is the largest branch of condensed matter physics. Solid-state p ...

, this most often refers to the

vortex In fluid dynamics, a vortex (: vortices or vortexes) is a region in a fluid in which the flow revolves around an axis line, which may be straight or curved. Vortices form in stirred fluids, and may be observed in smoke rings, whirlpools in th ...

pinning, the pinning of the magnetic vortices ( magnetic flux quanta, Abrikosov vortices) by different kinds of the defects in a

type II superconductor In superconductivity, a type-II superconductor is a superconductor that exhibits an intermediate phase of mixed ordinary and superconducting properties at intermediate temperature and fields above the superconducting phases. It also features the ...

. Important quantities are the ''individual'' maximal pinning force, which defines the depinning of a single vortex, and an ''average'' pinning force, which defines the depinning of the correlated vortex structures and can be associated with the critical current density (the maximal density of non-dissipative current). The interaction of the correlated vortex lattice with system of pinning centers forms the magnetic phase diagram of the vortex matter in superconductors. This phase diagram is especially rich for

high temperature superconductors High-temperature superconductivity (high-c or HTS) is superconductivity in materials with a critical temperature (the temperature below which the material behaves as a superconductor) above , the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. They are "high- ...

( HTSC) where the thermo-activation processes are essential. The pinning mechanism is based on the fact that the amount of

grain boundary In materials science, a grain boundary is the interface between two grains, or crystallites, in a polycrystalline material. Grain boundaries are two-dimensional defects in the crystal structure, and tend to decrease the electrical and thermal c ...

area is reduced when a particle is located on a grain boundary. It is also assumed that particles are spherical and the particle-matrix interface is incoherent. When a moving grain boundary meets a particle at an angle

\beta

, the particle exerts a pinning force

F

on the grain boundary that is equal to

F = 2\pi \sigma \cos \beta \sin \beta

; with

r

the particle radius and

\sigma

the

energy Energy () is the physical quantity, quantitative physical property, property that is transferred to a physical body, body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of Work (thermodynamics), work and in the form of heat and l ...

per unit of grain boundary area.

References

See also