Crossover from clean to dirty superconducting limit in YBCO films with modulated disorder

Magnetotransport measurements have been carried out for pristine and irradiated Y Ba2Cu3O7−x films. The measurements reveal a crossover from the clean superconducting limit to the dirty one with an increase in the impurity scattering rate Γ produced by a certain dose of irradiation. For the clean limit, the critical temperature Tc0 decreases with Γ, while the initial slope K=|dHc2/dT|Tc0 increases. We find a nice agreement between these experimental data and a model of d-wave superconductors with anisotropic impurity scattering. Such dose-dependencies of Tc0 and K reveal the superconducting coherence length ξ0 to be quasi-invariant in the clean limit. For the dirty limit, ξ0 increases with Γ due to a decrease in both the quantities Tc0 and K. Though, this decrease appears slower than predicted by the textbook picture of d-wave superconductors. Such discrepancy can be produced by an irradiation-induced modulated disorder responsible for the formation of (d+s)-wave pairing. •The initial slope K=|dHc2/dT|Tc0 increases with irradiation dose for low ion fluences, whereas for higher ion fluences it suffers a slow decay.•Clean-to-dirty crossover occurs in the superconducting state of Y BCO films at a certain dose of xenon ion irradiation.•The superconducting coherence length ξ0 remains quasi-invariant in the clean limit, while in the dirty limit it increases with irradiation dose.