Study of the vortex lattice of mesoscopic d-Wave superconductors

• Grant number: 12/14186-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: November 01, 2012
• End date: October 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Condensed Matter Physics
• Principal Investigator: Edson Sardella
• Grantee: Welken Charlois Gonçalves
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências (FC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Bauru. Bauru , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 07/08072-0 - Fundamental research in superconductivity and magnetism - systems potentially useful for aplications: advanced oxides and superconductors patterned with artificial structures, AP.TEM

Abstract

Since the discovery of modern techniques of fabrication of superconductors of very small size (films of thickness of order of nanometers and length and width of order of micrometers), in the last two decades people have become more interested, both from the theoretical and experimental point of view, in the magnetic and structural properties of the vortex lattice in nanostructured materials. People have realized that these properties are very different in materials of mesoscopic dimensions with respect to the those of macroscopic dimensions. In previous works we have developed a computational code on our own in order to study problems through the time dependent Ginzburg-Landau equations for conventional superconductors. The pairing mechanism for this type of superconductor is of the type s-waveto which the parameter order is a scalar. In this project we will develop an algorithm and, from this, extend the code already written for computational type s-wave superconductors for the $d$-wave ones. These superconductors are described by an order parameter which has two components. Like the $p$-wave superconductors, those with d-wave pairing are highly unconventional. For example, the vortex lattice in this type of material has square symmetry rather than triangular. (AU)