Hysteretic vortex matching effects in high-$T_c$ superconductors with nanoscale periodic pinning landscapes fabricated by He ion beam projection technique

Abstract

Square arrays of sub-micrometer columnar defects in thin YBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_{7-\delta }$ (YBCO) films with spacings down to 300 nm have been fabricated by a He ion beam projection technique. Pronounced peaks in the critical current and corresponding minima in the resistance demonstrate the commensurate arrangement of flux quanta with the artificial pinning landscape, despite the strong intrinsic pinning in epitaxial YBCO films. Whereas these vortex matching signatures are exactly at predicted values in field-cooled experiments, they are displaced in zero-field cooled, magnetic-field ramped experiments, conserving the equidistance of the matching peaks and minima. These observations reveal an unconventional critical state in a cuprate superconductor with an artificial, periodic pinning array. The long-term stability of such out-of-equilibrium vortex arrangements paves the way for electronic applications employing fluxons.

arXiv comment9 pages, 6 figures, to be published in Physical Review Applied

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Braiding Majorana Fermions and Creating Quantum Logic Gates with Vortices on a Periodic Pinning Structure
• Ultradense Tailored Vortex Pinning Arrays in Superconducting YBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_{7-\delta }$ Thin Films Created by Focused He Ion Beam Irradiation for Fluxonics Applications
• Transverse vortex commensurability effect and sign change of the Hall voltage in superconducting YBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_{7-\delta }$ thin films with a nanoscale periodic pinning landscape
• Vortex matching at 6 T in YBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_{7-\delta }$ thin films by imprinting a 20 nm-periodic pinning array with a focused helium ion beam
• Nano-patterning of cuprate superconductors by masked He${}^{+}$ ion irradiation: 3-dimensional profiles of the local critical temperature
• Angular magnetic-field dependence of vortex matching in pinning lattices fabricated by focused or masked helium ion beam irradiation of superconducting YBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_{7-\delta }$ thin films
• Unconventional critical state in YBa${}_2$Cu${}_3$O${}_{7-\delta }$ thin films with a vortex-pin lattice fabricated by masked He${}^{+}$ ion beam irradiation
• Tuning electric charge scattering in YBCO single crystals via irradiation with MeV electrons