Small anisotropy, weak thermal fluctuations, and high field superconductivity in Co-doped iron pnictide Ba(Fe1-xCox)2As2.

We performed high-field magnetotransport and magnetization measurements on a single crystal of the 122-phase iron pnictide Ba(Fe1-xCox)2As2. Unlike the high-temperature superconductor cuprates and 1111-phase oxypnictides, Ba(Fe1-xCox)2As2 showed practically no broadening of the resistive transitions under magnetic fields up to 45 T. We report the temperature dependencies of the upper critical field Hc2 both parallel and perpendicular to the c-axis, the irreversibility field Hirrc(T), and a rather unusual symmetric volume pinning force curve Fp(H) suggestive of a strong pinning nanostructure. The anisotropy parameter γ=Hc2ab/Hc2c deduced from the slopes of dHc2ab/dT=4.9 T/K and dHc2c/dT=2.5 T/K decreases from ∼2 near Tc, to ∼1.5 at lower temperatures, much smaller than γ for 1111pnictides and high-Tc cuprates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]