Josephson-vortex flow resistance in Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3Oy single crystals and its possible application in the manipulation of spin and charge textures in diluted magnetic semiconductors

(Received 30 October 2006; accepted 23 January 2007; published online 7 May 2007)

In this work, the flow of the Josephson vortices (JVs) has been studied for the highly anisotropic Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3Oy (Bi2223) single crystals. A giant flow of JVs or giant positive magnetoresistance (MR) of over 500%2000% was obtained in fields of 0.15 T and remained almost constant over a wide temperature range from 110 down to 4 K, in contrast to superconducting vortices (SVs), which only produced MR in the vicinity of Tc. The flow of the JVs is expected to be much faster than that of SVs. It is proposed that the Josephson vortices could be used to manipulate the spin and charge in magnetic semiconductors in the same way as SVs [M. Berciu, T. G. Rappoport, and B. Jankó, Nature (London) 435, 71 (2005)]. Hybrid systems consisting of layered superconductors with Josephson junctions and magnetic semiconductors will be discussed. é2007 American Institute of Physics