Events

With magnetic force microscopy experiments in mind,  the unzipping of individual flux lines from extended defects (columnar pins and twin planes)  in  superconductors will be considered.  It will  be  shown  that  the  critical exponents characterizing  the unbinding transition of  a  single flux-line from a twin plane are very sensitive  to  the presence of other flux lines in the plane.

In particular, they serve  as  an extremely sensitive probe of the Luttinger  liquid  parameter  which  characterizes  the physics of vortex lines in two dimensions.  In addition, the effects of point disorder on the critical properties  of  the  unzipping transition from both a columnar pin and a twin plane will be discussed.