Confined Vortex Matter with Anisotropic Interaction

In this project, we study confined superconducting vortex matter, when Abrikosov vortices are confined into a mesoscopic container. When the container is large, the vortices are arranged in a triangular Abrikosov vortex lattice. In contrast, in a mesoscopic container, vortices are arranged in other geometries strongly influenced by the container symmetry. In order to systematically study the system of confined vortices, we use the Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulation. In this work, we investigate the stability and melting of mesoscopic vortex matter as a function of vortex number, container size, and container geometry. We identify the so-called “magic number” states which correspond to very stable vortex configurations. We investigate the effect of container symmetry and size on these magic number states and differentiate between the so-called angular melting and general melting transitions. Finally, we explore the influence of anisotropic vortex interactions on the structure of mesoscopic vortex matter.