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The Structure of the Vortex Liquid at the Surface of a Layered Superconductor

A. Kraemer·E. Diaz-Herrera
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Abstract

A density-functional approach is used to calculate the inhomogeneous vortex density distribution in the flux liquid phase at the planar surface of a layered superconductor, where the external magnetic field is perpendicular to the superconducting layers and parallel to the surface. The interactions with image vortices are treated within a mean field approximation as a functional of the vortex density. Near the freezing transition strong vortex density fluctuations are found to persist far into the bulk liquid. We also calculate the height of the Bean-Livingston surface barrier.

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A. Kraemer, E. Diaz-Herrera. 1997-10-01. The Structure of the Vortex Liquid at the Surface of a Layered Superconductor. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.58.8755

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