Effect of oxygen stoichiometry on the vortex-glass phase transition in yttrium barium copper oxide thin films

The discovery of high temperature superconductors has deeply affected our view of the phenomenology of type-II superconductors. The high superconducting transition temperature together with the high anisotropy displayed by these compounds, greatly enhance the effects of the thermal fluctuations, thus leading to many interesting effects such as the melting of the vortex-lattice into a vortex-liquid. On the other hand, the introduction of strong quenched disorder into the system turns the Abrikosov vortex-lattice into a vortex-glass. The vortex-glass phase is separated from the vortex-liquid phase by a continuous phase transition melting boundary H;In this thesis, the results of a systematic experimental analysis of the effects of anisotropy on the melting line H...