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Science 14 November 2003:
Vol. 302. no. 5648, pp. 1188 - 1191
DOI: 10.1126/science.1090390
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Reports

A Superconducting Reversible Rectifier That Controls the Motion of Magnetic Flux Quanta

J. E. Villegas,1 Sergey Savel'ev,2 Franco Nori,2,3 E. M. Gonzalez,1 J. V. Anguita,4 R. García,4 J. L. Vicent1*

We fabricated a device that controls the motion of flux quanta in a niobium superconducting film grown on an array of nanoscale triangular pinning potentials. The controllable rectification of the vortex motion is due to the asymmetry of the fabricated magnetic pinning centers. The reversal in the direction of the vortex flow is explained by the interaction between the vortices trapped on the magnetic nanostructures and the interstitial vortices. The applied magnetic field and input current strength can tune both the polarity and magnitude of the rectified vortex flow. Our ratchet system is explained and modeled theoretically, taking the interactions between particles into consideration.

1 Departamento de Física de Materiales, Facultad Ciencias Físicas, Universidad Complutense, 28040, Madrid, Spain.
2 Frontier Research System, The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN), Wako-shi, Saitama, 351–0198, Japan.
3 Center for Theoretical Physics, Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109–1120, USA.
4 Instituto de Microelectrónica de Madrid, Centro Nacional Mícroelectrónica, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Isaac Newton 8, Tres Cantos, 28760 Madrid, Spain.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jlvicent{at}fis.ucm.es

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)