Related papers: Vortex Matter and its Phase Transitions
The vortex lattice is an ideal system to study the competition and interplay between interaction and disorder. New results on 2H-NbSe_2 (in samples of progressively increasing pinning) elucidate how pinning alters the phase boundary…
The mixed phase of layered superconductors with no magnetic screening is studied through a partial duality analysis of the corresponding XY model in the presence of random pinning centers. Sufficiently weak Josephson coupling between…
A controllable soft solid is realised in vortex matter in a type II superconductor. The two-dimensional unit cell area can be varied by a factor of $10^4$ in the solid phase, without a change of crystal symmetry offering easy exploration of…
We consider the ground state configurations of the Josephson vortex lattice in layered superconductors. Due to commensurability effects with the layered structure, the lattice has multiple configurations, both aligned with layers and…
Each time a vortex enters or exits a small superconductor, a different fluxoid state develops. We have observed splitting and sharp kinks on magnetization curves of such individual states. The features are the manifestation of first and…
The two dimensional lattice Ginzburg-Landau hamiltonian is simulated numerically for different values of the coherence length $\xi$ in units of the lattice spacing $a$, a parameter which controls amplitude fluctuations. The phase diagram on…
In type-I superconductors, zero electrical resistivity and perfect diamagnetism define two fundamental criteria for superconducting behavior. In contrast, type-II superconductors exhibit more complex mixed state physics, where magnetic flux…
A numerical scheme to study the mixed states in a mesoscopic type-II superconducting cylinder is described. Steady-state configurations and transient behavior of the magnetic vortices for various values of the applied magnetic field H are…
The phase diagram of a driven two-dimensional vortex lattice in the presence of dense quasi-point pins is investigated. The transition from the crystal to the liquid is found continuous at intermediate inductions. The correlations in the…
A micron sized single crystal of the superconductor BSCCO was studied using silicon mechanical micro-oscillators at various tilt angles of the dc magnetic field with respect to the c axis of the sample. Different phases of the vortex matter…
In the mixed state of type II superconductors, vortices penetrate the sample and form a correlated system due to the screening of supercurrents around them. Interestingly, we can study this correlated system as a function of density and…
The observation of vortices in superconductors was a major breakthrough in developing the conceptual background for superconducting applications. Each vortex carries a flux quantum, and the magnetic field radially decreases from the center.…
A perpendicular magnetic field penetrating a thin type-II superconductor slab produces vortices, with one vortex per flux quantum, h/2e. The vortices interact repulsively and form an ordered array (Abrikosov lattice) in clean systems, while…
Theories, simulations and experiments on vortex dynamics in quasi-two-dimensional magnetic materials are reviewed. These materials can be modelled by the classical two-dimensional anisotropic Heisenberg model with XY (easy-plane) symmetry.…
We study the effects of weak point and columnar disorder on the vortex-lattice phase transitions in high temperature superconductors. The combined effect of thermal fluctuations and of quenched disorder is investigated using a simplified…
The melting transition of the vortex lattice in highly anisotropic, layered superconductors with commensurate, periodic columnar pins is studied in a geometry where magnetic field and columnar pins are normal to the layers. Thermodynamic…
Order-disorder transitions between glassy phases are quite common in nature and yet a comprehensive survey of the microscopic structural changes remains elusive since the scale of the constituents is tiny and in most cases few of them take…
SU(2) lattice gauge theory is studied after eliminating thin monopoles and the smallest thick monopoles. Kinematically this constraint allows thick vortex loops which produce long range Z(2) fluctuations. The thick vortex loops are…
We report on the observation of two types of current driven transitions in metastable vortex lattices. The metastable states, which are missed in usual slow transport measurements, are detected with a fast transport technique in the vortex…
The state of the vortex lattice extremely close to the superconducting to normal transition in an applied magnetic field is investigated in high purity niobium. We observe that thermal fluctuations of the order parameter broaden the…