THERMODYNAMIC FLUCTUATIONS IN PROTON-IRRADIATED (BI,PB)-2223 SUPERCONDUCTORS

The paraconductivity of unirradiated and irradiated Pb doped Bi-2223 s uperconductors has been estimated. The energy of incident proton is 15 MeV. We want to study the effect of irradiation on Bi-2223 supercondu ctors with respect to paraconductivity analysis. We tried to find out the dimensionality of conductivity of each sample in the framework of Aslamazov-Larkin and Lawrence-Doniach theory. We have observed the 2D to 3D transition in some cases and found out the crossover temperature s T-0 for various samples. We also calculated the smallest Josephson c oupling strength J(2) and hopping probability omega between two CuO2 l ayers for unirradiated and irradiated Bi-2223 superconductors. Copyrig ht (C) 1996 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.