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Updated: Jul 28, 2025

Scalable Quantum Integrated Circuits on Superconducting Two-Dimensional Electron Gas Platform
Published on: August 2, 2019
Superconducting vortices carrying a temperature-dependent fraction of the flux quantum
Yusuke Iguchi1,2, Ruby A Shi1,2,3, Kunihiro Kihou4
1Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
Abstract:
Magnetic field penetrates type-II bulk superconductors by forming quantum vortices that enclose a magnetic flux equal to the magnetic flux quantum. The flux quantum is a universal quantity that depends only on fundamental constants. In this study, we investigated isolated vortices in the hole-overdoped Ba1-KFe2As2 (x = 0.77) by using scanning superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometry. In many locations, we observed objects that carried only part of a flux quantum, with a magnitude that varied continuously with temperature. We demonstrated mobility and manipulability of these objects and interpreted them as quantum vortices with nonuniversally quantized (fractional) magnetic flux whose magnitude is determined by the temperature-dependent parameters of a multicomponent superconductor.
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