Abstract
We report on magnetometry of individual Al disks with the radiusr from several μm down to 103A. The studies were carried out using a novel μ-magnetisation measurement technique which is based on detection of a local magnetic field by submicron Hall probes. The technique allows non-invasive access to individual superconducting samples of the size comparable with the coherence length ξ(T=0) (0D regime). The superconducting phase diagram of Al disks exhibits an oscillatory behaviour due to the size quantization in the energy spectrum of Cooper pairs, in analogy to the classical Little-Parks experiment. The experiment also reveals a number of new features related to the reduced dimensionality: a) recovery of the type-I phase transition aroundr=ξ(0) while the transition remains type-II in both limitsr >ξ b) mesoscopic correction to the ideal Meissner state due to partial penetration of a vortex and c) metastable superconductivity due to a hysteretic transition between the ground and excited states in the superconducting energy spectrum.
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