YBCO thin films in ac and dc films

We report studies on the dc magnetization of YBCO thin films in simultaneously applied dc and ac fields. The effect of the ac fields is to decrease the irreversible magnetization drastically leading to complete collapse of the hysteresis loops for relatively small ac fields (250e). The magnitude of the decrease depends on the component of the ac field parallel to the c-axis. The decrease is non-linear with ac amplitude and is explained in the framework of the critical state response of ultra thin films in perpendicular geometry. The ac fields increase the relaxation rapidly at short times while the long time response appears unaffected. (author)