Spatial Characteristics of Superconductors and a 3D Hall Microscope for Their Analysis

Based on Hall probes, a scanning microscope with a survey area of 5 × 5 mm has been developed and used for high-spatial-resolution and sensitivity measurements of the topology of magnetic field B(X, Y, Z) on the surface of and around the YBa2Cu3O7 – x and Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 + x samples without resorting to electrodynamics expressions. The differential technique with the fixation of the beginning and end of the probe displacement ensures the scanning accuracy of about 10 and 1 μm for scanning along the X, Y, and Z axes, respectively. The maximal displacement along the Z axis is 25 mm. For eliminating measuring errors, normalized distributions B(Z)/Bmax(0) are extrapolated to the ordinate axis shifted along the Z axis by the width of the gap between the sample surface and the Hall probe.