13 research outputs found
Fluctuation Superconductivity in Mesoscopic Aluminum Rings
Fluctuations are important near phase transitions, where they can be
difficult to describe quantitatively. Superconductivity in mesoscopic rings is
particularly intriguing because the critical temperature is an oscillatory
function of magnetic field. There is an exact theory for thermal fluctuations
in one-dimensional superconducting rings, which are therefore expected to be an
excellent model system. We measure the susceptibility of many rings, one ring
at a time, using a scanning SQUID that can isolate magnetic signals from seven
orders of magnitude larger background applied flux. We find that the
fluctuation theory describes the results and that a single parameter
characterizes the ways in which the fluctuations are especially important at
magnetic fields where the critical temperature is suppressed.Comment: Reprinted with permission from AAA
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Mechanics of Individual, Isolated Vortices in a Cuprate Superconductor
Superconductors often contain quantized microscopic whirlpools of electrons, called vortices, that can be modelled as one-dimensional elastic objects1. Vortices are a diverse area of study for condensed matter because of the interplay between thermal fluctuations, vortex–vortex interactions and the interaction of the vortex core with the three-dimensional disorder landscape. Although vortex matter has been studied extensively, the static and dynamic properties of an individual vortex have not. Here, we use magnetic force microscopy (MFM) to image and manipulate individual vortices in a detwinned YBa2Cu3O6.991 single crystal, directly measuring the interaction of a moving vortex with the local disorder potential. We find an unexpected and marked enhancement of the response of a vortex to pulling when we wiggle it transversely. In addition, we find enhanced vortex pinning anisotropy that suggests clustering of oxygen vacancies in our sample and demonstrates the power of MFM to probe vortex structure and microscopic defects that cause pinning.Physic
Partition asymptotics from one-dimensional quantum entropy and energy currents
We give an alternative method to that of Hardy-Ramanujan-Rademacher to derive
the leading exponential term in the asymptotic approximation to the partition
function p(n,a), defined as the number of decompositions of a positive integer
'n' into integer summands, with each summand appearing at most 'a' times in a
given decomposition. The derivation involves mapping to an equivalent physical
problem concerning the quantum entropy and energy currents of particles flowing
in a one-dimensional channel connecting thermal reservoirs, and which obey
Gentile's intermediate statistics with statistical parameter 'a'. The method is
also applied to partitions associated with Haldane's fractional exclusion
statistics.Comment: Published versio
Self-aligned nanoscale SQUID on a tip
A nanometer-sized superconducting quantum interference device (nanoSQUID) is
fabricated on the apex of a sharp quartz tip and integrated into a scanning
SQUID microscope. A simple self-aligned fabrication method results in
nanoSQUIDs with diameters down to 100 nm with no lithographic processing. An
aluminum nanoSQUID with an effective area of 0.034 m displays flux
sensitivity of 1.8 \mu_B/\mathrm{Hz}^{1/2}$ and high bandwidth, the SQUID on a tip is a highly
promising probe for nanoscale magnetic imaging and spectroscopy.Comment: 14 manuscript pages, 5 figure