Demagnetization of Cubic Gd-Ba-Cu-O Bulk Superconductor by Crossed-Fields: Measurements and Three-Dimensional Modeling

Superconducting bulks, acting as high-field permanent magnets, are promising for many applications. An important effect in bulk permanent magnets is crossed-field demagnetization, which can reduce the magnetic field in superconductors due to relatively small transverse fields. Crossed-field demagnetization has not been studied in sample shapes such as rectangular prisms or cubes. This contribution presents a study based on both three-dimensional (3-D) numerical modeling and experiments. We study a cubic Gd-Ba-Cu-O bulk superconductor sample of size 6 mm magnetized by field cooling in an external field of around 1.3 T, which is later submitted to crossed-field magnetic fields of up to 164 mT. Modeling results agree with experiments, except at transverse fields 50% or above of the initial trapped field. The current paths present a strong 3-D nature. For instance, at the midplane perpendicular to the initial magnetizing field, the current density in this direction changes smoothly from the critical magnitude, J
_c
, at the lateral sides to zero at a certain penetration depth. This indicates a rotation of the current density with magnitude J
_c
, and hence force free effects like flux cutting are expected to play a significant role.