Investigation of T_c Change Due to 0.6 MeV Proton Irradiation in TBCCO Superconductors

We studied the effect of 0.6 MeV proton irradiation on the superconducting and normal state properties of thin film TBCCO-2212 superconductor. A 650 nm thick sample was subjected to a series of proton irradiations totaling a fluence of 5.2 x 10^16 p/cm^2. As expected, the superconducting critical temperature (T_c) was decreased from 100 K towards zero Kelvin, and the normal state resistivity increased accordingly. However, the data began to exhibit a large broadening effect in the superconducting transition likely due to the presence of the pseudogap. The rate of T_c reduction to resistivity increase can still be extracted from the data and will be used to discuss the fundamental property of the superconductor.