ANALYSIS OF MAGNETIC CRITICAL FIELDS IN IRON-BASED SmFeAsO0.85 HIGH-Tc SUPERCONDUCTOR

The magnetic properties of the newly discovered iron-oxypnictide SmFeAsO0.85 high-Tc superconductor with a Tc of around 55 K were investigated. Bulk SmFeAsO0.85 was prepared by a method for high-pressure synthesis. The lower critical field Hc1 was estimated from the magnetization at low fields; Hc1(0) was measured to be 212 Oe. A linear temperature dependence instead of saturation at low temperatures in Hc1(T) revealed unconventional superconductivity with a nodal gap structure in our SmFeAsO0.85 superconductor. The results showed that the well-known secondary peak in the temperature dependence of the critical current density Jc is absent in the SmFeAsO0.85 high-Tc superconductor. The irreversibility line Birr was fitted well by the power law dependence (1 - T/Tc)n with n ~ 1.5. This is indicative of the flux creep phenomena in the SmFeAsO0.85 high-Tc superconductor. In addition, within the range of measurement temperatures in this study, no crossover was observed in the temperature dependence of the irre...