Vortex matter in the presence of an array of pinning centers of variable strength

This contribution reports on the magnetic response of a 200 nm thick Nb film, pierced with a set of 900 columnar indentations of nearly triangular cross section, forming a square lattice. The column effective diameter is 1 μm and the array lattice parameter is 10 μm. To probe the interaction of vortex matter with the array of antidots, we have excited the sample with an AC-field, so that flux trapped by the columns could be unpinned and admitted into the superconducting sea surrounding the defects. An order-disorder line was determined for this system, with a kink separating two regimes, suggesting a crossover from the efficient pinning regime, at lower temperatures, to a temperature-induced depinning. To exploit the influence of pinning efficiency on vortex dynamics, we have determined the order-disorder line at different angles between the applied field and the plane of the film. A plot of the field component perpendicular to the film versus temperature, gives a collapsed response near Tc, which splits for lower temperatures, as a consequence of pinning weakening due to the component of the applied AC-field perpendicular to the columns. Consistently, the kink tends to progressively disappear as the pinning strength decreases.