Anti-Poiseuille flow: Increased vortex velocity at superconductor edges

Abstract

Using the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equations, we study vortex motion driven by an applied current in two-dimensional superconductors in the presence of a physical boundary. At smaller sourced currents the vortex lattice moves as a whole, with each vortex moving at the same velocity. At the larger sourced current, the vortex motion is organized into channels, with vortices in channels closer to the sample edges moving faster than those farther away from sample edges, opposite the Poiseuille flow of basic hydrodynamics in which the velocity is lowest at the boundaries. At intermediate currents, a stick-slip motion of the vortex lattice occurs in which vortices in the channel at the boundary break free from the Abrikosov lattice, accelerate, move past their neighbors, and then slow down and reattach to the vortex lattice, at which point the stick-slip process starts over. These effects could be observed experimentally, e.g., using fast scanning microscopy techniques.

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