Peculiarities of the time evolution of magnetoresistance of granular HTSC in a constant applied magnetic field

The time evolution of the magnetoresistance of bulk YBCO + CuO composites at T=4.2K in constant applied magnetic fields was studied to clarify the mechanism of hysteretic behavior of magnetoresistance R(H) of granular HTSC. The composites represent “model” granular HTSC with weakened Josephson coupling between superconducting (YBCO) crystallites. It was found for the first time that on the ascending branch of R(H) dependence, the resistance at H=const decreased with time while on the descending branch, the resistance increased with time in an applied constant magnetic field. In the range of low magnetic fields (below the minimum point of the descending branch of the R(H) dependence), the resistance at H=const decreased again. Similar measurements performed on pure polycrystalline YBCO at T=77.4K have shown that the behavior of evolution of resistance with time is similar to that observed for the composite. This proves the peculiarity of time evolution of magnetoresistance to be a common feature of granular HTSCs. The behavior revealed is well described by the model of granular HTSC, where the intergrain media is in an effective magnetic field which is the superposition of the external field and the field induced by superconducting grains. The time evolution of resistance reflects the time relaxation of magnetization of HTSC grains due to the intragrain flux creep processes.