This book describes the magnetic properties of high-temperature (high-Tc) superconductors, including properties of the irreversibility lines, of flux pinning and flux creep. These magnetic properties are considerably different from what can be found in previous textbooks. Here, the various types of high-Tc superconductors and their magnetic behavior are described and, using magnetic imaging methods, also directly visualized. By means of recent results concerning flux pinning in various high-Tc superconductors, a pinning phase diagram is developed. Several features encountered in magnetisation hysteresis loops of high-Tc superconductors like the central peak and the secondary or fishtail peak are discussed in detail. A chapter describes the measurement techniques such as magneto-optic imaging. AFM/MFM. Hall sensors, STM, electron holography and magnetisation and transport-current measurements. Finally, several peculiarities in the flux distributions of high-Tc superconductors are discussed.
