Flux-pinning properties of superconducting films with arrays of blind holes

Abstract

We performed ac susceptibility measurements to explore the vortex dynamics and the flux-pinning properties of superconducting Pb films with an array of microholes (antidots) and not fully perforated holes (blind holes). A lower ac shielding together with a smaller extension of the linear regime for the lattice of blind holes indicates that these centers provide a weaker pinning potential than antidots. Moreover, we found that the maximum number of flux quanta trapped by a pinning site, i.e., the saturation number ${n}_{s}$, is lower for the blind hole array.