High J _c and low anisotropy of hydrogen doped NdFeAsO superconducting thin film

The recent realisations of hydrogen doped LnFeAsO (Ln = Nd and Sm) superconducting epitaxial thin films call for further investigation of their structural and electrical transport properties. Here, we report on the microstructure of a NdFeAs(O,H) epitaxial thin film and its temperature, field, and orientation dependencies of the resistivity and the critical current density J_c. The superconducting transition temperature T_c is comparable to NdFeAs(O,F). Transmission electron microscopy investigation supported that hydrogen is homogenously substituted for oxygen. A high self-field J_c of over 10 MA/cm² was recorded at 5 K, which is likely to be caused by a short London penetration depth. The anisotropic Ginzburg–Landau scaling for the angle dependence of J_c yielded temperature-dependent scaling parameters γ_J that decreased from 1.6 at 30 K to 1.3 at 5 K. This is opposite to the behaviour of NdFeAs(O,F). Additionally, γ_J of NdFeAs(O,H) is smaller than that of NdFeAs(O,F). Our results indicate that heavily electron doping by means of hydrogen substitution for oxygen in LnFeAsO is highly beneficial for achieving high J_c with low anisotropy without compromising T_c, which is favourable for high-field magnet applications.