TY - JOUR
T1 - Nanostructured superconductors with asymmetric pinning potentials
T2 - Vortex ratchets
AU - Plourde, Britton L.T.
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received April 30, 2009; revised July 9, 2009. First published September 4, 2009; current version published September 30, 2009. This paper was recommended by Associate Editor M. Mueck. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant DMR-0547147. The author is with the Department of Physics, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-1130 USA (e-mail: [email protected]). Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TASC.2009.2028873
Funding Information:
Prof. Plourde received a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation in 2006.
PY - 2009/10
Y1 - 2009/10
N2 - Ratchets formed from spatially asymmetric confining potentials can rectify an oscillatory driving force and generate directed motion. Such devices can probe the fundamental nature of particle transport in nanoscale systems, both solid state and biological. Vortices in superconductors form an ideal system for exploring ratchet phenomena. Various techniques are available for producing nanostructured pinning landscapes that can provide tailored asymmetries for vortex ratchets. Progress in the theory and experimental implementations of vortex ratchets will be reviewed. In many cases, intervortex interactions in ratchet structures result in intriguing collective effects in the vortex transport, such as reversals in the sense of the rectification. Future vortex ratchet investigations may probe possible quantum mechanical ratchet effects, explore the dynamics of single vortices in ratchets, and test vortex devices based on ratchet phenomena.
AB - Ratchets formed from spatially asymmetric confining potentials can rectify an oscillatory driving force and generate directed motion. Such devices can probe the fundamental nature of particle transport in nanoscale systems, both solid state and biological. Vortices in superconductors form an ideal system for exploring ratchet phenomena. Various techniques are available for producing nanostructured pinning landscapes that can provide tailored asymmetries for vortex ratchets. Progress in the theory and experimental implementations of vortex ratchets will be reviewed. In many cases, intervortex interactions in ratchet structures result in intriguing collective effects in the vortex transport, such as reversals in the sense of the rectification. Future vortex ratchet investigations may probe possible quantum mechanical ratchet effects, explore the dynamics of single vortices in ratchets, and test vortex devices based on ratchet phenomena.
KW - Superconducting device fabrication
KW - Superconducting device measurements
KW - Superconducting materials
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U2 - 10.1109/TASC.2009.2028873
DO - 10.1109/TASC.2009.2028873
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:70349964696
SN - 1051-8223
VL - 19
SP - 3698
EP - 3714
JO - IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity
JF - IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity
IS - 5
M1 - 5232856
ER -