Sculpting microscopic magnetic flux landscapes in a BSCCO2212 vortex lens

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how to manipulate the magnetic flux landscape in layered superconductors by controlling in-plane magnetic fields, enabling the creation of adjustable magnetic flux lenses with tunable profiles.

Contribution

It introduces a method to sculpt magnetic flux profiles in superconductors using in-plane magnetic fields, supported by experimental and simulation data.

Findings

Magnetic flux profiles can be controlled by in-plane magnetic fields.

Flux density can be varied by up to 40%.

Both convex and concave flux lenses are realized.

Abstract

We demonstrate experimentally that the micromagnetic profile of the out-of-plane component of magnetic induction, B_z, in the crossing lattices regime of layered superconductors can be manipulated by varying the in-plane magnetic field, H_{||}. Moving Josephson vortices drag/push pancake vortex stacks, and the magnetic profile, B_z(x), can be controllably sculpted across the entire single crystal sample. Depending on the H-history and temperature we can increase or decrease the flux density at the center and near the edges of the crystal by as much as 40%, realising both 'convex' and 'concave' magnetic flux lenses. Our experimental results are well described by molecular dynamics simulations.