CRITICAL CURRENT SIMULATION IN GRANULAR SUPERCONDUCTORS ABOVE THE PERCOLATION-THRESHOLD

In the phase-coherent regime without applied external magnetic field, the critical superconducting current is limited by intragranular junctions which behave like Josephson junctions. We study the percolation aspects specific to lattices of such junctions and/or the mixing of superconductor with normal grains by averaging over configurations. We illustrate on 2 and 3 dimensional examples. The power laws valid near the percolation threshold are valid well above it, in two and three dimensions. We discuss the other models limiting the superconducting current, the vortex creep and superconducting order parameter fluctuations.