Competition between Superconductor - Ferromagnetic stray magnetic fields in YBa2Cu3O7-x films pierced with Co nano-rods.

Superconductivity and ferromagnetism are two antagonistic phenomena that combined can lead to a rich phenomenology of interactions, resulting in novel physical properties and unique functionalities. Here we propose an original hybrid system formed by a high-temperature superconducting film, patterned with antidots, and with ferromagnetic nano-rods grown inside them. This particular structure exhibits the synergic influence of superconductor (SC) - ferromagnetic (FM) stray fields, in both the superconducting behaviour of the film and the three-dimensional (3D) magnetic structure of nano-rods. We show that FM stray fields directly influence the critical current density of the superconducting film. Additional functionalities appear due to the interaction of SC stray fields, associated to supercurrent loops, with the non-trivial 3D remanent magnetic structure of FM nano-rods. This work unravels the importance of addressing quantitatively the effect of stray magnetic fields from both, the superconductor and the ferromagnet in hybrid magnetic nano-devices based on high temperature superconductors.

Long-distance transfer and routing of static magnetic fields.

We show how the static magnetic field of a finite source can be transferred and routed to arbitrary long distances. This is achieved by using transformation optics, which results in a device made of a material with a highly anisotropic magnetic permeability. We show that a simplified version of the device, made by a superconducting-ferromagnet hybrid, also leads to an excellent transfer of the magnetic field. The latter is demonstrated with a proof-of-principle experiment where a ferromagnet tube coated with a superconductor improves the transfer of static magnetic fields with respect to conventional methods by a 400% factor over distances of 14 cm.

Superconducting vortex lattices for ultracold atoms.

We propose and analyze a nanoengineered vortex array in a thin-film type-II superconductor as a magnetic lattice for ultracold atoms. This proposal addresses several of the key questions in the development of atomic quantum simulators. By trapping atoms close to the surface, tools of nanofabrication and structuring of lattices on the scale of few tens of nanometers become available with a corresponding benefit in energy scales and temperature requirements. This can be combined with the possibility of magnetic single site addressing and manipulation together with a favorable scaling of superconducting surface-induced decoherence.

Quantum magnetomechanics with levitating superconducting microspheres.

We show that by magnetically trapping a superconducting microsphere close to a quantum circuit, it is possible to perform ground-state cooling and prepare quantum superpositions of the center-of-mass motion of the microsphere. Due to the absence of clamping losses and time-dependent electromagnetic fields, the mechanical motion of micrometer-sized metallic spheres in the Meissner state is predicted to be very well isolated from the environment. Hence, we propose to combine the technology of magnetic microtraps and superconducting qubits to bring relatively large objects to the quantum regime.