Flux Confinement in Mesoscopic Superconductors

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the topology of mesoscopic superconducting structures influences flux confinement effects and the critical temperature versus magnetic field phase boundary.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the shape of the T_{c}(H) phase boundary is uniquely determined by the confinement topology in mesoscopic superconductors.

Findings

The boundary conditions for superconducting condensate confinement are altered by sample topology.

The T_{c}(H) phase boundary shape depends on the confinement topology.

Flux confinement effects are demonstrated in various submicron superconducting structures.

Abstract

We report on flux confinement effects in superconducting submicron line, loop and dot structures. The main idea of our study was to vary the boundary conditions for confinement of the superconducting condensate by taking samples of different topology and, through that, modifying the lowest Landau level E_{LLL}(H). Since the critical temperature versus applied magnetic field T_{c}(H) is, in fact, E_{LLL}(H) measured in temperature units, it is varied as well when the sample topology is changed. We demonstrate that in all studied submicron structures the shape of the T_{c}(H) phase boundary is determined by the confinement topology in a unique way.