Issue |
Europhys. Lett.
Volume 58, Number 4, May 2002
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 582 - 588 | |
Section | Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/epl/i2002-00435-1 | |
Published online | 01 May 2002 |
Magnetic-force microscopy of vortices in thin niobium films: Correlation between the vortex distribution and the thickness-dependent film morphology
1
Laboratorium voor Vaste-Stoffysica en Magnetisme, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Celestijnenlaan 200 D, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium
2
Department of Physics, University of California-San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093-0319, USA
Received:
5
June
2001
Accepted:
15
February
2002
We demonstrate the possibility to reliably image vortices in
superconducting Nb films with a low-temperature magnetic-force
microscope. Our force microscope enables to monitor the surface
topography as well, allowing to correlate the location of the
vortices with specific topographic features. For Nb films of
different thickness () and
different
(
) we studied how
the vortex configuration changes when changing the applied
magnetic field under field-cooled conditions (
). We find that the vortex pinning preferentially occurs
in between the grains appearing at the film surface. This is
consistent with a distribution of pinning centers which is
governed by the columnar growth of the Nb films. For thicker Nb
films the vortex arrangement is no longer dominated by pinning
alone, and there appear short-range correlations in the vortex
lattice. The short-range correlations are enhanced when increasing
the applied magnetic field.
PACS: 74.60.Ge – Flux pinning, flux creep, and flux-line lattice dynamics / 68.37.Rt – Magnetic force microscopy (MFM) / 74.76.Db – Conventional superconducting films
© EDP Sciences, 2002
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