SUPERCONDUCTING FILM WITH EMBEDDED COBALT NANORODS.

Studies of the transport properties of a PbBi superconducting film with an embedded triangular array of cobalt nanorods with a 300 nm period are reported. It is found that the critical current demonstrates strong hysteresis and maxima at magnetic field values corresponding to an integral number of flux quanta per unit cell of the array. The amplitude of the critical current is larger than for a control film without nanorods. The increase varies from several times to several orders of magnitude depending on the magnetic field and temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]