Magnetic flux dynamics in superconducting films studied by scanning Hall probe microscopy

Abstract

In this thesis we address two different issues in the field of flux dynamics in superconductors with constricted geometry. In our experiments we used scanning Hall probe microscopy to investigate the magnetic field profile above the samples' surface. In the first experiment, Vortex Nucleation in Narrow Thin-Film Strips, we studied the magnetic flux nucleation in type-II superconducting thin-film strips of mesoscopic width. The maximum magnetic field below which vortices are completely expelled from niobium narrow thin-film strips was measured for different widths. Above this threshold field we examined the field dependence of the vortex density for the studied strips. In the second experiment, The Superconducting Dripping Faucet, we analyzed, in microbridge geometry, the dynamics of the magnetic flux nucleation in a one-dimensional type-I superconducting channel. For this experiment we have developed a novel high-bandwidth Hall probe to detect in real time the nucleation and subsequent motion of the magnetic flux tubes along a fabricated one-dimensional channel in a lead film. The complex dynamics exhibited by the flux tubes nucleating from one end of the channel shares many characteristics of the well-known dripping faucet experiment. Nonlinear time series analysis was used to investigate the dynamics of the flux tubes in our experiment.