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 untagged