Healing Effect of Controlled Anti-Electromigration on Conventional and High-T Superconducting Nanowires.

The electromigration process has the potential capability to move atoms one by one when properly controlled. It is therefore an appealing tool to tune the cross section of monoatomic compounds with ultimate resolution or, in the case of polyatomic compounds, to change the stoichiometry with the same atomic precision. As demonstrated here, a combination of electromigration and anti-electromigration can be used to reversibly displace atoms with a high degree of control.

Statistics of localized phase slips in tunable width planar point contacts.

The main dissipation mechanism in superconducting nanowires arises from phase slips. Thus far, most of the studies focus on long nanowires where coexisting events appear randomly along the nanowire. In the present work we investigate highly confined phase slips at the contact point of two superconducting leads.

Imprinting superconducting vortex footsteps in a magnetic layer.

Local polarization of a magnetic layer, a well-known method for storing information, has found its place in numerous applications such as the popular magnetic drawing board toy or the widespread credit cards and computer hard drives. Here we experimentally show that a similar principle can be applied for imprinting the trajectory of quantum units of flux (vortices), travelling in a superconducting film (Nb), into a soft magnetic layer of permalloy (Py). In full analogy with the magnetic drawing board, vortices act as tiny magnetic scribers leaving a wake of polarized magnetic media in the Py board.