Nature 385, 702 - 705 (20 February 1997); doi:10.1038/385702a0

Magneto-optical observation of twisted vortices in type-II superconductors

M. V. Indenbom^*†, C. J. van der Beek^*, V. Berseth^*, W. Benoit^*, G. D'Anna^*, A. Erb^‡, E. Walker^‡ & R. Flükiger^‡

^*Institut de Génie Atomique, Département de Physique, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
^†Institute of Solid State Physics, 142432 Chernogolovka, Moscow District, Russia
^‡Département de Physique de la Matière Condensée, Université de Genève, CH-1211 Genève, Switzerland

When magnetic flux penetrates a type-II superconductor, it does so as quantized flux lines or vortex lines, so called because each is surrounded by a supercurrent vortex. Interactions between such vortices lead to a very rich and well characterized phenomenology for this 'mixed state'. But an outstanding question remains: are individual vortex lines 'strong', or can they easily be cut and made to pass through one another? The concept of vortex cutting was originally proposed to account for dissipation observed in superconducting wires oriented parallel to an applied magnetic field, where the vortex lines and transport current should be in a force-free configuration^1–6. Previous experiments, however, have been unable to establish the vortex topology in the force-free configuration or the size of the energy barrier for vortex cutting. Here we report magneto-optical images of YBa₂Cu₃O_7– samples in the force-free configuration which show that thousands of vortex lines can twist together to form highly stable structures. In some cases, these 'vortex twisters' interact with one another to produce wave-like dynamics. Our measurements also determine directly the current required to initiate vortex cutting, and show that it is much higher than that needed to overcome the pinning of vortices by material defects. This implies that thermodynamic phases of entangled vortices^7–10 are intrinsically stable and may occupy a significant portion of the mixed-state phase diagram for type-II superconductors.

1. Campbell, A. M. & Evetts, J. E. Adv. Phys. 21, 199−428 (1972). | ISI | ChemPort |
2. Timms, W. E. & Walmsley, D. G. J. Phys. F 5, 287−306 (1975). | Article | ChemPort |
3. LeBlanc, M. A. R. et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 14, 704−707 (1965); 66, 3309−3312 (1991); 71, 3367−3370 (1993). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
4. Fillion, G., Gauthier, R. & LeBlanc, M. A. R. Phys. Rev. Lett. 43, 86−89 (1979). | Article | ChemPort |
5. Clem, J. R. Phys. Rev. B 26, 2463−2473 (1982). | Article | ChemPort |
6. Brandt, E. H. Rep. Prog. Phys. 58, 1456−1594 (1995).
7. Nelson, D. R. Phys. Rev. Lett. 60, 1973−1977 (1988). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
8. Fisher, M. P. A. Phys. Rev. Lett. 62, 1415−1419 (1989). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
9. Brandt, E. H. & Sudbø, A. Phys. Rev. Lett. 66, 2278 (1991). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
10. Obukhov, S. P. & Rubinstein, M. Phys. Rev. Lett. 66, 2279 (1991). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
11. DeSorbo, W. & Healy, W. A. Cryogenics 4, 257−326 (1964). | Article | ChemPort |
12. Durán, C. A. et al. Nature 357, 474−477 (1992). | Article | ISI |
13. Welp, U. et al. Nature 376, 44−46 (1995). | Article | ISI | ChemPort |
14. Dorosinskii, L. A. et al. Physica C 203, 149−156 (1992). | ChemPort |
15. Erb, A., Walker, E. & Flükiger, R. Physica C 258, 9−20 (1996). | ChemPort |
16. Schilling, A. et al. Nature 382, 791−793 (1996). | Article | ISI | ChemPort |
17. Roulin, M. et al. J. Low. Temp. Phys. 105, 1099−1104 (1995).
18. Indenbom, M. V. et al. Physica C 226, 325−332 (1994). | ChemPort |
19. D'Anna, G. et al. Europhys. Lett. 25, 225−230 (1994).
20. André, M.-O. et al. Proc. 7th Int. Workshop on Critical Currents (ed. Weber, H. W.) 276−279 (World Scientific, Singapore, 1994).
21. Meissner, H. Phys. Rev.B 97, 1627−1633 (1955); 101, 31−36 (1956).
22. Nabarro, F. R. N., Bazinski, Z. S. & Holt, D. B. Adv. Phys. 13, 193−323 (1964). | ChemPort |