Vortex structure in mesoscopic superconductors

The nonlinear Ginzburg-Landau equations are solved numerically in order to investigate the vortex structure in thin superconducting disks of arbitrary shape. Depending on the size of the system and the strength of the applied magnetic field giant vortex, multi-vortex and a combination of both of them are found. The saddle points in the energy landscape are identified from which we obtain the energy barriers for flux penetration and expulsion.