The Effects of Pinning on Critical Currents of Superconducting Films

Using molecular dynamics simulations, we analyze the effects of artificial periodic arrays of pinning sites on the critical current of superconducting thin films as a function of vortex density. We analyze two types of periodic pinning arrays: hexagonal and Kagom'e. For the Kagome pinning network we calculate, using two directions of transport current: longitudinal and transversal. Our results show that the hexagonal pinning array presents higher critical currents than Kagom'e and random pinning configuration for all vortex densities. In addition, the Kagom'e network shows anisotropy in their transport properties.