Getting off the track

Abstract

The production of MeV/amu heavy-ion and MeV cluster-ion beams has allowed continuous damage tracks to be made in a wide variety of materials. Using simple phenomenological models of the track-formation process one can estimate in advance the morphology of the tracks that will result from a particular set of irradiation parameters, i.e., target material, ion type and energy. In this talk I shall discuss the use of these models and how they are applied in a specific example: the pinning of quantized magnetic-flux vortices in a high-temperature superconductor. For this application one must also employ models for the interaction of the vortex and the column of damage. On the basis of such simulations it is found that although damage tracks are extremely useful for increasing the flux pinning, and hence the critical current, it would be even better if one could control the track positions and radii over a wider range of values. A new development in nanotechnology will be discussed that may, indeed, allow this to be accomplished easily and inexpensively.