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Local Magnetic Measurements of Trapped Flux Through a Permanent Current Path in Graphite

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Abstract

Temperature- and field-dependent measurements of the electrical resistance of different natural graphite samples suggest the existence of superconductivity at room temperature in some regions of the samples. To verify whether dissipationless electrical currents are responsible for the trapped magnetic flux inferred from electrical resistance measurements, we localized them using magnetic force microscopy on a natural graphite sample in remanent state after applying a magnetic field. The obtained evidence indicates that at room temperature a permanent current flows at the border of the trapped flux region. The current path vanishes at the same transition temperature \(T_c\approx 370\) K as the one obtained from electrical resistance measurements on the same sample. This sudden decrease in the phase is different from what is expected for a ferromagnetic material. Time-dependent measurements of the signal show the typical behavior of flux creep of a permanent current flowing in a superconductor. The overall results support the existence of room-temperature superconductivity at certain regions in the graphite structure and indicate that magnetic force microscopy is suitable to localize them. Magnetic coupling is excluded as origin of the observed phase signal.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Henning Beth for providing us with the natural graphite sample from Sri Lanka, and A. Setzer for the XRD characterization. C.E.P. gratefully acknowledges the support provided by The Brazilian National Council for the Improvement of Higher Education (CAPES). M. S. and J. B. Q. are supported by the DFG collaboration project SFB762.

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  1. Division of Superconductivity and Magnetism, Felix-Bloch Institute for Solid-state Physics, University of Leipzig, 04103, Leipzig, Germany

    Markus Stiller, Pablo D. Esquinazi, José Barzola Quiquia & Christian E. Precker

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  1. Markus Stiller
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Correspondence to Markus Stiller.

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Stiller, M., Esquinazi, P.D., Quiquia, J.B. et al. Local Magnetic Measurements of Trapped Flux Through a Permanent Current Path in Graphite. J Low Temp Phys 191, 105–121 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10909-018-1859-6

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