CRITICAL CURRENTS AND THERMAL-ACTIVATION IN A-AXIS ORIENTED EUBA2CU3O7 THIN-FILMS

a-axis oriented EuBa2Cu3O7/SrTiO3(100) thin Films have been grown by D C magnetron sputtering. Critical current and resistivity have been mea sured as a function of temperature down to 15 K, and field, up to 9 T. In spite of the existence of 90(0) grain boundaries, the critical cur rent is not limited by weak links, The lower part of the resistivity t ransition and the field dependence of the pinning force may be underst ood in terms of thermally activated flux creep with activation energy U(T,H) U-0(T)/H and U-0 values of several hundreds of meV.