Effect of the boundary condition on the vortex patterns in mesoscopic three-dimensional superconductors: Disk and sphere

Abstract

The vortex state of mesoscopic three-dimensional superconductors is determined using a minimization procedure of the Ginzburg-Landau free energy. We obtain the vortex pattern for a mesoscopic superconducting sphere and find that vortex lines are naturally bent and are closest to each other at the equatorial plane. For a superconducting disk with finite height, and under an applied magnetic field perpendicular to its major surface, we find that our method gives results consistent with previous calculations. The matching fields, the magnetization and ${H}_{c3}$, are obtained for models that differ according to their boundary properties. A change of the Ginzburg-Landau parameters near the surface can substantially enhance ${H}_{c3}$, as shown here.