Large effect of columnar defects on the thermodynamic properties o single crystals

The introduction of columnar defects by irradiation with 5.8-GeV Pb ions is shown to affect significantly the reversible magnetic properties of (Formula presented) single crystals. Notably, the suppression of superconducting fluctuations on length scales greater than the separation between columns leads to the disappearance of the "crossing point" in the critical fluctuation regime. At lower temperatures, the strong modification of the vortex energy due to pinning leads to an important change of the reversible magnetization. The analysis of the latter permits the direct determination of the pinning energy.