Effect of symmetry on the resistive characteristics of proximity coupled metallic multilayers

Abstract

The influence of finite dimensions of metallic multilayers on the superconducting phase nucleation and vortex mobility is studied. Resistive characteristics are sensitive to the geometrical symmetry of the samples. For multilayers with the symmetry plane in the center of superconducting layer the resistive transitions are widely spread for temperatures above the temperature of two- to three-dimensional crossover with respect to the samples with the symmetry plane in the center of the normal layer. Applying the Ginzburg-Landau theory, we correctly found the upper critical magnetic fields and explained the observed broadening by considering the common action of the Lorentz and pinning forces on the nascent vortex lattice.