Ion-velocity dependence of high-density electronic excitation effects in oxide superconductors

Thin films of EuBa2Cu3Oy oxide superconductor have been irradiated with high energy heavy ions (80 MeV I, 125 MeV Br, 1.1 GeV Mo and 3.5 GeV Xe) having same electronic stopping power, Se, in order to investigate the ion-velocity dependence of the electronic excitation effects under the constant electronic energy deposition. Although Se is constant, a strong reduction in the irradiation effect on lattice parameter with increasing ion-velocity is observed in the low ion-velocity region around E ∼ 1 MeV/nucleon, while the ion-velocity dependence is hardly observed in the high ion-velocity region of E > 10 MeV/nucleon. If the observed velocity-dependence is assumed to be due to the change in the fraction of Se contributing to defect creation, the fraction in the low velocity region (E ∼ 0.6 MeV/nucleon) is estimated to be about two times larger than that in the high velocity region (E > 10 MeV/nucleon).