Using GPUs for determining the energy configuration of superconducting vortex lattices with stochastic methods

Abstract

By fabricating Nb films on top of array of Ni nanodots with different geometries, the vortex lattice for specific values of the external applied magnetic field is modified by the array of periodic pinning potentials. In this work, a GPU-based code developed from scratch simulating this phenomenon is presented. It evaluates the vortex–vortex and the vortex–nanodot interactions providing the total interaction between vortices and pinning sites, as well as the position of the vortices in the array unit cell. This final position is obtained with two stochastic processes (simulated annealing, Basin Hopping) being able to simulate square, rectangular, or triangular arrays of nanodefects of different size. A computational performance study is also made.