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, Ic(H). When the vortex is placed at certain discrete positions in the strip middle, the pattern Ic(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, Ic(H) is no longer sensitive to the vortex presence. The same is true for any separation if the vortex approaches the strip edges.