English

Direct Observation of Vortex Shells and Magic Numbers in Mesoscopic Superconducting Disks

Superconductivity 2009-11-11 v1 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Abstract

We have visualised and studied vortex configurations in mesoscopic superconducting disks using the Bitter decoration technique. For a broad range of vorticities L the circular geometry is found to result in the formation of concentric shells of vortices. From images obtained on disks of different sizes in a range of magnetic fields we were able to trace the evolution of vortex states and identify stable and metastable configurations. Furthermore, quantitative analysis of shell filling with increasing L allowed us to identify 'magic' numbers corresponding to the appearance of consecutive new shells.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0506642,
  title  = {Direct Observation of Vortex Shells and Magic Numbers in Mesoscopic Superconducting Disks},
  author = {I. V. Grigorieva and L. Y. Vinnikov and W. Escoffier and J. Richardson and S. V. Dubonos and V. Oboznov and A. K. Geim},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0506642},
  year   = {2009}
}