English

Phase diagram of a superconductor / ferromagnet bilayer

Superconductivity 2009-11-10 v2

Abstract

The magnetic field (H) - temperature (T) phase diagram of a superconductor is significantly altered when domains are present in an underlying ferromagnet with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. When the domains have a band-like shape, the critical temperature Tc of the superconductor in zero field is strongly reduced, and the slope of the upper critical field as a function of T is increased by a factor of 2.4 due to the inhomogeneous stray fields of the domains. Field compensation effects can cause an asymmetric phase boundary with respect to H when the ferromagnet contains bubble domains. For a very inhomogeneous domain structure, Tc~H^2 for low H and Tc~H for higher fields, indicating a dimensional crossover from a one-dimensional network-like to a two-dimensional behavior in the nucleation of superconductivity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0310132,
  title  = {Phase diagram of a superconductor / ferromagnet bilayer},
  author = {M. Lange and M. J. Van Bael and V. V. Moshchalkov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0310132},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

6 pages, 7 figures