Experimental investigation of high temperature superconducting imaging surface magnetometry

The behavior of high temperature superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) in the presence of high temperature superconducting surfaces has been investigated. When current sources are placed close to a superconducting imaging surface (SIS) an image current is produced due to the Meissner effect. When a SQUID magnetometer is placed near such a surface it will perform in a gradiometric fashion provided the SQUID and source distances to the SIS are much less than the size of the SIS. We present the first experimental verification of this effect for a high temperature SIS and SQUID. Results are presented for two SQUID-SIS configurations, using a 100-mm-diam YBa2Cu3O(7−δ) disk as the SIS. These results indicate that when the current source and sensor coil (SQUID) are close to the SIS, the behavior is that of a first-order gradiometer. The results are compared to analytic solutions as well as the theoretical predictions of a finite element model.