Dynamics of Driven Vortices in Disordered Type-II Superconductors

We numerically investigate the dynamical properties of driven magnetic flux vortices in disordered type-II superconductors for a variety of temperatures, types of disorder and sample thicknesses. We do so with the aid of Langevin molecular dynamics simulations of a coarsegrained elastic line model of flux vortices in the extreme London limit. Some original findings of this doctoral work include the discovery that flux vortices driven through random point disorder show simple aging following drive quenches from the moving lattice state to both the pinned glassy state (non-universal aging) and near the critical depinning region (universal aging); estimations of experimentally consistent critical scaling exponents for the continuous depinning phase transition of vortices in three dimensions; and an estimation of the boundary curve separating regions of linear and non-linear electrical transport for flux lines driven through planar defects via novel direct measurements of vortex excitations.