Unusually strong coherent response from grain-boundary Josephson network in polycrystalline Pr_{x}Y_{1-x}Ba_2Cu_3O_7

Abstract

By applying a highly sensitive homemade AC susceptibility technique to Pr_{x}Y_{1-x}Ba_2Cu_3O_7 polycrystals (with x=0.0, 0.1 and 0.3), we observed very sharp Fraunhofer type low-field periodic oscillations of the real part of the AC susceptibility which were attributed to Josephson vortices penetrating intergranular regions of grain-boundary Josephson network in our samples. Assuming the Lorentz type distribution of single-junction contact areas, we were able to successfully fit the experimental data.