Manipulating Josephson junctions in thin-films by nearby vortices

It is shown that a vortex trapped in one of the banks of a planar edge-type Josephson junction in a narrow thin-film superconducting strip can change drastically the dependence of the junction critical current on the applied field, I c ( H ) . When the vortex is placed at certain discrete positions in the strip middle, the pattern I c ( H ) has zero at H = 0 instead of the traditional maximum of ‘0-type’ junctions. The number of these positions is equal to the number of vortices trapped at the same location. When the junction–vortex separation exceeds ∼ W , the strip width, I c ( H ) is no longer sensitive to the vortex presence. The same is true for any separation if the vortex approaches the strip edges.