Soft vortex matter in a type-I/type-II superconducting bilayer

L. Komendová; M. V. Milošević; F. M. Peeters

doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.88.094515

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Soft vortex matter in a type-I/type-II superconducting bilayer

L. Komendová, M. V. Milošević, F. M. Peeters

DOI 10.1103/PhysRevB.88.094515 · Physical Review B

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Abstract

Magnetic flux patterns are known to strongly differ in the intermediate state of type-I and type-II superconductors. Using a type-I/type-II bilayer we demonstrate hybridization of these flux phases into a plethora of unique new ones. Owing to a complicated multibody interaction between individual fluxoids, many different intriguing patterns are possible under applied magnetic field, such as few-vortex clusters, vortex chains, mazes, or labyrinthal structures resembling the phenomena readily encountered in soft-matter physics. However, in our system the patterns are tunable by sample parameters, magnetic field, current, and temperature, which reveals transitions from short-range clustering to long-range ordered phases such as parallel chains, gels, glasses, and crystalline vortex lattices, or phases where lamellar type-I flux domains in one layer serve as a bedding potential for type-II vortices in the other, configurations clearly beyond the soft-matter analogy.

Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval

Formula	Reported Tc (K)	Pressure (GPa)	Type
Nb Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula.	9.2	Pressure not reported	unknown
Sn Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula.	3.7	Pressure not reported	unknown