Configuration and calibration of pickup coils for measurement of ac loss in long superconductors

Pickup coils are widely used for measurements of magnetic susceptibility and hysteretic losses in magnetic and superconducting materials. A general formulation for the calibration of such pickup coils with different geometries is presented. Although the procedure described here is general and can be applied to any coil and sample, special emphasis has been placed on the calibration of saddlelike coils usually used to measure ac losses of long superconductors under ac fields perpendicular to their long dimension. Numerical simulations and experimental measurements have been carried out in order to determine the geometrical limitations of the pickup coil/sample configurations. This is especially important when simple coils of small dimensions and number of turns are used and/or samples of high demagnetization factor are measured. Superconductors of different geometry, in particular, wires and tapes under parallel and perpendicular fields, have been analyzed. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.