Laser Modulation of Superconductivity in a Cryogenic Wide-field Nitrogen-Vacancy Microscope.

Scott E Lillie; David A Broadway; Nikolai Dontschuk; Sam C Scholten; Brett C Johnson; Sebastian Wolf; Stephan Rachel; Lloyd CL Hollenberg; Jean-Philippe Tetienne

Journal article

Laser Modulation of Superconductivity in a Cryogenic Wide-field Nitrogen-Vacancy Microscope.

Scott E Lillie, David A Broadway, Nikolai Dontschuk, Sam C Scholten, Brett C Johnson, Sebastian Wolf, Stephan Rachel, Lloyd CL Hollenberg, Jean-Philippe Tetienne

Nano Letters | ACS Publications | Published : 2020

DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b05071

Abstract

We realize a cryogenic wide-field nitrogen-vacancy microscope and use it to image Abrikosov vortices and transport currents in a superconducting Nb film. We observe the disappearance of vortices upon increase of laser power and their clustering about hot spots upon decrease, indicating local quenching of superconductivity by the laser. Resistance measurements confirm the presence of large temperature gradients across the film. We then investigate the effect of such gradients on transport currents where the current path is seen to correlate with the temperature profile even in the fully superconducting phase. In addition to highlighting the role of temperature inhomogeneities in superconducti..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Brett Johnson Author Physics

Stephan Rachel Author Physics

Lloyd Hollenberg Author Physics

Nikolai Dontschuk Author Physics

Jean-Philippe Tetienne Author Physics

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Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council (ARC)

Funding Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) through Grants DE170100129, CE170100012, LE180100037, FT180100211, DP190101506, and DP200101118. We acknowledge the AFAiiR node of the NCRIS Heavy Ion Capability for access to ion-implantation facilities. D.A.B. and S.E.L. are supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. We acknowledge the contributions of D. Creedon and S. Yianni in developing the fabrication of superconducting Nb films and A. Martin for useful discussions.