Stabilization of the dissipation-free current transport in inhomogeneous MgB2 thin films

• We investigate transport properties of inhomogeneous MgB2 films.
• An inhomogeneous microstructure stabilizes supercurrents.
• Vortex pinning forces and energies have been analyzed experimentally.
• In inhomogeneous films the increase of the pinning energy is responsible for stable supercurrents.

In type-II superconductors at T = 0 the critical current density is determined by the pinning of flux lines. Considering an arbitrarily shaped energy landscape the pinning force at each pinning site is given by the derivative of the flux line energy with respect to the considered direction. At finite temperatures, in addition, thermal activation can lead to a depinning of flux lines. The governing property in this case is the depth of the corresponding pinning potential, i.e. the pinning energy. We show a detailed analysis of both pinning forces and pinning energies of MgB2 films with inhomogeneous microstructure. We show that a pronounced increase of the pinning energy is responsible for the significantly enhanced stability of the dissipation-free current transport in thin inhomogeneous MgB2 films. This is found even if the corresponding pinning forces are small.