Study of flux pinning mechanism under hydrostatic pressure in optimally doped (Ba,K)Fe2As2 single crystals

Strong pinning depends on the pinning force strength and number density of effective defects. Using the hydrostatic pressure method, we demonstrate here that hydrostatic pressure of 1.2 GPa can significantly enhance flux pinning or the critical current density (Jc) of optimally doped Ba0.6K0.4Fe2As2 crystals by a factor of up to 5 in both low and high fields, which is generally rare with other Jc enhancement techniques. At 4.1 K, high pressure can significantly enhance Jc from 5 x 105 A/cm2 to nearly 106 A/cm2 at 2 T, and from 2 x 105 A/cm2 to nearly 5.5 x 105 A/cm2 at 12 T. Our systematic analysis of the flux pinning mechanism indicates that both the pinning centre number density and the pinning force are greatly increased by the pressure and enhance the pinning. This study also shows that superconducting performance in terms of flux pinning or Jc for optimally doped superconducting materials can be further improved by using pressure.