Fine Structure in Magnetization of Individual Fluxoid States

A. K. Geim, S. V. Dubonos, J. J. Palacios, I. V. Grigorieva, M. Henini, J. J. Schermer
2000 Physical Review Letters  
Each time a vortex enters or exits a small superconductor, a different fluxoid state develops. We have observed splitting and sharp kinks on magnetization curves of such individual states. The features are the manifestation of first and second order transitions, respectively, and reveal the existence of distinct vortex phases within a superconducting state with a fixed number of fluxoids. We show that the kinks indicate the merger of individual vortices into a single giant vortex while the
more » ... ting is attributed to transitions between different arrays of the same number of vortices.
doi:10.1103/physrevlett.85.1528 pmid:10970546 fatcat:kvrxhllhlzfbhd7ouhun5lxwwa