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Title: Targeted evolution of pinning landscapes for large superconducting critical currents

Abstract

The ability of type II superconductors to carry large amounts of current at high magnetic fields is a key requirement for future design innovations in high-field magnets for accelerators and compact fusion reactors, and largely depends on the vortex pinning landscape comprised of material defects. The complex interaction of vortices with defects that can be grown chemically, e.g., self-assembled nanoparticles and nanorods, or introduced by postsynthesis particle irradiation precludes a priori prediction of the critical current and can result in highly nontrivial effects on the critical current. Here, we borrow concepts from biological evolution to create a vortex pinning genome based on a genetic algorithm, naturally evolving the pinning landscape to accommodate vortex pinning and determine the best possible configuration of inclusions for two different scenarios: a natural evolution process initiating from a pristine system and one starting with preexisting defects to demonstrate the potential for a postprocessing approach to enhance critical currents. Furthermore, the presented approach is even more general and can be adapted to address various other targeted material optimization problems.

Authors:
; ; ; ; ORCiD logo
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF); Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
OSTI Identifier:
1505851
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1524418
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC05-00OR22725; AC02-06CH11357
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Published Article
Journal Name:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Journal Volume: 116 Journal Issue: 21; Journal ID: ISSN 0027-8424
Publisher:
National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC (United States)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; Genetic algorithms; critical current; superconductivity; targeted selection; time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau; vortex pinning

Citation Formats

Sadovskyy, Ivan A., Koshelev, Alexei E., Kwok, Wai-Kwong, Welp, Ulrich, and Glatz, Andreas. Targeted evolution of pinning landscapes for large superconducting critical currents. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1073/pnas.1817417116.
Sadovskyy, Ivan A., Koshelev, Alexei E., Kwok, Wai-Kwong, Welp, Ulrich, & Glatz, Andreas. Targeted evolution of pinning landscapes for large superconducting critical currents. United States. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1817417116
Sadovskyy, Ivan A., Koshelev, Alexei E., Kwok, Wai-Kwong, Welp, Ulrich, and Glatz, Andreas. 2019. "Targeted evolution of pinning landscapes for large superconducting critical currents". United States. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1817417116.
@article{osti_1505851,
title = {Targeted evolution of pinning landscapes for large superconducting critical currents},
author = {Sadovskyy, Ivan A. and Koshelev, Alexei E. and Kwok, Wai-Kwong and Welp, Ulrich and Glatz, Andreas},
abstractNote = {The ability of type II superconductors to carry large amounts of current at high magnetic fields is a key requirement for future design innovations in high-field magnets for accelerators and compact fusion reactors, and largely depends on the vortex pinning landscape comprised of material defects. The complex interaction of vortices with defects that can be grown chemically, e.g., self-assembled nanoparticles and nanorods, or introduced by postsynthesis particle irradiation precludes a priori prediction of the critical current and can result in highly nontrivial effects on the critical current. Here, we borrow concepts from biological evolution to create a vortex pinning genome based on a genetic algorithm, naturally evolving the pinning landscape to accommodate vortex pinning and determine the best possible configuration of inclusions for two different scenarios: a natural evolution process initiating from a pristine system and one starting with preexisting defects to demonstrate the potential for a postprocessing approach to enhance critical currents. Furthermore, the presented approach is even more general and can be adapted to address various other targeted material optimization problems.},
doi = {10.1073/pnas.1817417116},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1505851}, journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
issn = {0027-8424},
number = 21,
volume = 116,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Apr 08 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Mon Apr 08 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record at https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1817417116

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 13 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Figures / Tables:

Fig. 1 Fig. 1: Sketch of a targeted evolution of the pinning landscape. We start with generation 0, which contains a single configuration without defects. Each defect has elliptical shape and is characterized by three independent diameters. The evolution process, ‘mutates’ the pinning landscape by adding/removing, translating, scaling, and reshaping particles. Thesemore » mutations create the next generation. We accept the pinning landscape with maximal critical current density (Jc) and discard all others. The evolution ends at some generation N with configuration having maximal Jc (shown in red).« less

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Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.