Vortices in Type II Superconductors

We have contributed to the development of the new Vortex Matter phenomenology in disordered and strongly fluctuating type II superconductors: Particular research topics studied in the past are the theory of classical and quantum creep of vortices, classical and quantum melting, the decoupling transition in layered systems, anisotropic scaling theory, quantum depinning, weak collective pinning and functional renormalization group theory, strong pinning, correlated disorder, vortex dynamics, Hall effect, vortex charge, the van der Waals attraction between vortices, the structure of vortices in d-wave superconductors, and the electronic structure and dissipation in moderately clean superconductors. Recent reserach efforts concentrate on the phenomenon of strong pinning and its crossover to the weak collective pinning scenario, the zero-field superconductor to normal transition in bi- and multilayer systems, the density functional theory of bulk and surface melting of the pancake-vortex lattice in layered superconductors.

Literature:
[1] G. Blatter, M.V. Feigel'man, V.B. Geshkenbein, A.I. Larkin, and V.M. Vinokur, Vortices in high temperature superconductors, Rev. Mod. Phys. 66, 1125 (1994).
[2] G. Blatter and V.B. Geshkenbein, Vortex Matter, The Physics of Superconductors, Vol. 1, Conventional and High-Tc superconductors, eds. K.H. Bennemann and J.B. Ketterson (Springer, Berlin, 2003), pp 726.