SUPERCONDUCTOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, cilt.18, sa.8, ss.1029-1034, 2005 (SCI-Expanded)
We report on measurements of the ac susceptibility of sintered YBCO pellets, with ZnO added, as a function of temperature T, for several different ac magnetic field amplitudes, Hac, in the presence of static bias magnetic field H-b directed along H-ac. For each choice of H-ac, the imaginary part of the ac susceptibility versus T traces a peak, denoted chi''(max), centred at a temperature denoted Tma, We find that chi"(max) versus both H-ac and T-max traces a valley. Calculations of hysteresis losses, exploiting the critical state model where the critical current density j(c) = alpha (T)/B-n, reproduce the experimental data quite well.