Enhancing superconducting critical current by randomness.
YL Wang
LR Thoutam
ZL Xiao
B Shen
JE Pearson
R Divan
LE Ocola
GW Crabtree
WK Kwok
10027/20510
https://indigo.uic.edu/articles/journal_contribution/Enhancing_superconducting_critical_current_by_randomness_/10774313
The key ingredient of high critical currents in a type-II superconductor is defect sites that pin vortices. Contrary
to earlier understanding on nanopatterned artificial pinning, here we show unequivocally the advantages of a
random pinscape over an ordered array in a wide magnetic field range. We reveal that the better performance of a
random pinscape is due to the variation of its local density of pinning sites (LDOPS), which mitigates the motion
of vortices. This is confirmed by achieving even higher enhancement of the critical current through a conformally
mapped random pinscape, where the distribution of the LDOPS is further enlarged. The demonstrated key role of
LDOPS in enhancing superconducting critical currents gets at the heart of random versus commensurate pinning.
Our findings highlight the importance of random pinscapes in enhancing the superconducting critical currents of
applied superconductors.
2016-05-04 00:00:00
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