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Flow Induced Organization and Memory of a Vortex Lattice

1999; American Physical Society; Volume: 83; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1103/physrevlett.83.1664

1092-0145

Zhili Xiao, Eva Y. Andrei, M. J. Higgins,

Theoretical and Computational Physics

We report on experiments probing the evolution of a vortex state in response to a driving current in 2H-NbSe$_2$ crystals. By following the vortex motion with fast transport measurements we find that the current enables the system to reorganize and access new configurations. During this process the system exhibits a long-term memory: if the current is turned off the vortices freeze in place remembering their prior motion. When the current is restored the motion resumes where it stopped. The experiments provide evidence for a dynamically driven structural change of the vortex lattice and a corresponding dynamic phase diagram that contains a previously unknown regime where the critical current can be either $increased$ or $decreased$ by applying an appropriate driving current.