Heating in mesa structures

Analytic and computational methods are used to consider the effects of heating on I-V measurements on commonly used mesa structures fabricated from single crystals of highly anisotropic superconductors. We address the time dependence of the temperature rise as well as its ultimate value and discuss the relative advantages for measurements of employing small mesa size, short pulses, and ns-to-mus measurements. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.