Characterization of high-temperature superconductors by AC susceptibility measurements

A magnetic field harmonically varying in time (to probe the sample) and a lock-in technique (to register the sample response sensed by a pick-up coil) are widely used for characterizing superconductors. Measuring the temperature dependence of the complex AC susceptibility is the most common procedure of this type. This paper reviews these techniques, introducing in addition the complex AC susceptibility, the so-called 'wide-band AC susceptibility'. The latter quantity refers to the magnetic flux and often offers an easier meeting between theory and experiment. Starting from models for linear flux diffusion, reversible screening, volume and surface flux pinning and the intermediate regime in a type II superconductor, the expressions for the complex AC susceptibility in different cases are presented and compared with those derived for the wide-band AC susceptibility. Derivation of the basic physical properties of high-T-c superconducting materials from the AC data (resistivity, critical temperatures and fields, London and Campbell penetration depths, critical current density, granularity and content of superconducting phase, irreversibility line, pinning potential) is then thoroughly discussed.