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We studied the impact of soft ferromagnetic permalloy (Py) on the shielding currents in a strong-pinning superconductor—YBa2Cu3O7−δ with Ba2Y(Nb/Ta)O6 nano-precipitates—by means of scanning transmission x-ray microscopy. Typically and in particular when in the thin film limit, superconductor/ferromagnet (SC/FM) bilayers exhibit isotropic properties of the flux line ensemble at all temperatures. However, in elements with small aspect ratio a significant anisotropy in flux penetration is observed. We explain this effect by local in-plane fields arising from anisotropic magnetic stray fields originated by the ferromagnet. This leads to direction-dependent motion of magnetic vortices inside the SC/FM bilayer. Our results demonstrate that small variations of the magnetic properties can have huge impact on the superconductor.

Magnetic imaging of superconductors typically requires a soft-magnetic material placed on top of the superconductor to probe local magnetic fields. For reasonable results the influence of the magnet onto the superconductor has to be small. Thin YBCO films with soft-magnetic coatings are investigated using SQUID magnetometry. Detailed measurements of the magnetic moment as a function of temperature, magnetic field and time have been performed for different heterostructures. It is found that the modification of the superconducting transport in these heterostructures strongly depends on the magnetic and structural properties of the soft-magnetic material. This effect is especially pronounced for an inhomogeneous coating consisting of ferromagnetic nanoparticles.

Scanning transmission x-ray microscopy has been used to image electric currents in superconducting films at temperatures down to 20 K. We detect significant deviations from a regular current path driven by macroscopic geometrical constraints. The magnetic stray field of supercurrents in a thin YBaCuO film is mapped into a soft-magnetic coating of permalloy. The so-created local magnetization of the ferromagnetic film can be detected by dichroic absorption of polarized x rays. To enable high-quality measurements in transmission geometry, the whole heterostructure of ferromagnet, superconductor, and single-crystalline substrate has been thinned to an overall thickness of less than 1 \textmu{}m. With this technique, local supercurrents can be analyzed in a wide range of temperatures and magnetic fields. The less than 100 nm spatial resolution of the magnetic signal together with simultaneously obtained nanostructural data allow the correlation of local supercurrents with the micro- and nanostructure of the superconducting film.