Related papers: Vortex matching effect in engineered thin films of…
In a sandwich consisting of two superconducting films, one weakly pinning and one strongly pinning, the vortex positions in both films are determined by the strongly pinning material and the vortex lattice is disordered in both films. We…
Using a first-principles-based approach, we determine the ferroelectric pattern in PbZr$_{0.5}$Ti$_{0.5}$O$_3$ ultrathin film. It is found that vortex stripes are formed in the system and they are responsible for the 180$^\circ$ domains…
Optical conductivity of a moderately disordered superconducting NbN film was investigated by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy in external magnetic field applied along the film plane. The film thickness of about 5 nm was comparable with…
Current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of quench condensed, superconducting, ultrathin Bi films in a magnetic field are reported. These show hysteresis for all films, grown both with and without thin Ge underlayers. Films on Ge underlayers,…
For thin films of superfluid adsorbed on a disordered substrate, we derive the equation of motion for a vortex in the presence of a random potential within a mean field (Hartree) description of the condensate. The compressible nature of the…
The vortex dynamics in superconducting films deposited on top of a five-fold Penrose array of magnetic dots is studied by means of transport measurements. We show that in the low pinning regime (demagnetized dots) a few periodic and…
Nanowires of two-dimensional (2D) crystals of type-II superconductor NbSe$_2$ prepared by electron-beam lithography were studied, focusing on the effect of the motion of Abrikosov vortices. We present magnetoresistance measurements on these…
We present measurements of the superconducting coherence length \xi\ in thin (d < 100 \AA) films of MoGe alloy and Nb using a combination of linear and nonlinear mutual inductance techniques. As the alternating current in the drive coil is…
In order to compare magnetic and non-magnetic pinning we have nanostructured two superconducting films with regular arrays of pinning centers: Cu (non-magnetic) dots in one case, and Py (magnetic) dots in the other. For low applied magnetic…
We use a scanning nanometer-scale superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) to image individual vortices in amorphous superconducting MoSi thin films. Spatially resolved measurements of the magnetic field generated by both…
The use of artificial defects is known to enhance the superconducting critical parameters of thin films. In the case of conventional superconductors, regular arrays of submicron holes (antidots) substantially increase the critical…
To better understand vortex pinning in thin superconducting slabs, we study the interaction of a single fluctuating vortex filament with a curved line defect in (1+1) dimensions. This problem is also relevant to the interaction of scratches…
Novel vortex structures are found when a thin superconducting film (SC) is covered with a lattice of out-of-plane magnetized magnetic dots (MDs). The stray magnetic field of the dots confines the vortices to the MD regions, surrounded by…
We observed slow moving vortex lattices in NbSe_2 using a home built STM at a temperature of 4.2 K and magnetic fields in the range of 250-500 mT. The vortex lattices move coherently at speeds of 1-10 pm/s due to a slow decay of our…
Near room temperature, thin films of MnAs spontaneously align into two phases, one ferromagnetic and the other paramagnetic. These two phases take the intriguing form of nanoscale "wires." In this experiment, we investigate the spontaneous…
Vortex trapping is investigated in thin-film strips of superconducting material. We present a model for the critical field above which vortex trapping occurs in these strips. This model includes the pairing energy of vortex-antivortex pairs…
We study the interactions of the vortex lattice with a periodic square array of holes in a superconducting Nb film. Using high resolution magnetic field measurements of electrical losses, extremely narrow states with a magnetic field width…
Controlled engineering of vortex pinning sites in copper-oxide superconductors is a critical issue in manufacturing devices based on magnetic flux quanta. To address this, we employed a focused He-ion beam (He-FIB) to irradiate thin…
We present measurements of how a single vortex line in superfluid helium interacts with a macroscopic bump on the chamber wall. At a general level our measurements confirm computational work on vortex pinning by a hemispherical bump, but…
Quantitative magneto-optical imaging of a type-II superconductor thin film cooled under zero, homogeneous, and inhomogeneous applied magnetic fields, indicates that the latter procedure leads to an enhancement of the screening capacity.…