In silico optimization of critical currents in superconductors

Abstract

For many technological applications of superconductors the performance of a material is determined by the highest current it can carry losslessly - the critical current. In turn, the critical current can be controlled by adding non-superconducting defects in the superconductor matrix. Here we report on systematic comparison of different local and global optimization strategies to predict optimal structures of pinning centers leading to the highest possible critical currents. We demonstrate performance of these methods for a superconductor with randomly placed spherical, elliptical, and columnar defects.

16 pages, 10 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Stable large-scale solver for Ginzburg-Landau equations for superconductors
• Effect of hexagonal patterned arrays and defect geometry on the critical current of superconducting films

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Strong-pinning regimes by spherical inclusions in anisotropic type-II superconductors
• Targeted evolution of pinning landscapes for large superconducting critical currents
• The quest for high critical current in applied high-temperature superconductors