Eur. Phys. J. B (2015) 88: 286
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2015-60628-9

Regular Article

Effect of ordered array of magnetic dots on the dynamics of Josephson vortices in stacked SNS Josephson junctions under DC and AC current

¹ Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI), HBKU, Qatar Foundation, P.O. Box 5825, Doha, Qatar
² Department of Physics, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, UK
³ Departement Fysica, Universiteit Antwerpen, Groenenborgerlaan 171, 2020 Antwerpen, Belgium

^a e-mail: s.saveliev@lboro.ac.uk

Received: 3 August 2015
Received in final form: 10 September 2015
Published online: 3 November 2015

Abstract

We use the anisotropic time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau theory to investigate the effect of a square array of out-of-plane magnetic dots on the dynamics of Josephson vortices (fluxons) in artificial stacks of superconducting-normal-superconducting (SNS) Josephson junctions in the presence of external DC and AC currents. Periodic pinning due to the magnetic dots distorts the triangular lattice of fluxons and results in the appearance of commensurability features in the current-voltage characteristics of the system. For the larger values of the magnetization, additional peaks appear in the voltage-time characteristics of the system due to the creation and annihilation of vortex-antivortex pairs. Peculiar changes in the response of the system to the applied current is found resulting in a “superradiant” vortex-flow state at large current values, where a rectangular lattice of moving vortices is formed. Synchronizing the motion of fluxons by adding a small ac component to the biasing dc current is realized. However, we found that synchronization becomes difficult for large magnetization of the dots due to the formation of vortex-antivortex pairs.