Disorder induced power-law response of a superconducting vortex on a plane

Abstract

We report drive-response experiments on individual superconducting vortices on a plane, a realization for a 1+1-dimensional directed polymer in random media. For this we use magnetic force microscopy (MFM) to image and manipulate individual vortices trapped on a twin boundary in YBCO near optimal doping. We find that when we drag a vortex with the magnetic tip it moves in a series of jumps. As theory suggests the jump-size distribution does not depend on the applied force and is consistent with power-law behavior. The measured power is much larger than widely accepted theoretical calculations.

4 pages, 4 figures, Supplemental Material file included