Theoretical Foucault Images of Superconducting Fluxons

Abstract

Individual flux lines in superconducting specimens have been recently observed using a 300kV holography electron microscope equipped with a cold field emission gun in the transmission mode by means of the out-of-focus method. In this way it has been possible to observe the dynamic behaviour of fluxons depending upon the variations of the temperature and/or the applied magnetic field or current. The main disadvantage of this method is that correlation with structural defects is troublesome owing to the large defocus distance (of the order of 1 cm for conventional superconductors) necessary for the detection of flux lines.This drawback is not present in the Foucault technique, where the contrast is generated in the focused image by masking part of the transmitted beam by means of an aperture. Therefore, some preliminary calculations have been made recently using one-dimensional models, which allow for a quick and easy simulation of the factors affecting the experimental conditions .