Vortex pinning and critical current control and enhancement by magnetic structure and artificial arrays in YBa2Cu3O7-δ superconductor thin films

Superconductivity provides revolutionary solutions to practical applications, such as magnetic resonance imaging, fault current limiters, and unsurpassable sensitivity and characteristic for electronics and quantum computing, which to date are unattainable by more conventional technologies. The is still a lot can be improved in making superconductors cheaper, more reproducible and robust to enable even easier and broader paths into our everyday lives. One of the most versatile superconductor with strong potential for many types of technologies and corresponding applications is YBa2Cu3O7-δ (YBCO), a high temperature superconductor (HTS) ceramic material. This material can be manufactured in the form of high quality single-crystalline epitaxial films, not only on small chips for electronic devices, but also on large area wafers and tapes over a hundred meters long for cellular communication filters and electric power generation, handling and transmission. They suffer, however from the relatively low degree of reproducibility of their functional characteristics, especially for devices required for electronics and quantum computation, for which highly accurate and reproducible functionalities are required. This reproducibility problem stems from the fact that YBCO has four elements in its crystal structure, which are rather difficult to grow in a perfectly ordered fashion