Abrikosov flux vortex lattice

In condensed matter physics, the effects of disorder, defects, and impurities are relevant for many materials properties hence their understanding is of utmost importance. The effects of randomness and disorder can be dramatic and have been investigated for a variety of systems covering a wide field of complex phenomena [109]. Examples include the pinning of an Abrikosov flux vortex lattice by impurities in superconductors [110], disorder in Ising magnets [111], superfluid transitions of He in a porous medium [112], and phase transitions in randomly confined smectic liquid crystals [113, 114]. 

Abrikosov flux lattice 333 observed by STM 333 tunneling conductance near a vortex 334 AFM... 

Next came the likewise phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau theory of superconductivity, based on the Landau theory of a second-order phase transition (see also Appendix B) that predicted the coherence length and penetration depth as two characteristic parameters of a superconductor (Ginzburg and Landau, 1950). Based on this theory, Abrikosov derived the notion that the magnetic field penetrates type II superconductors in quantized flux tubes, commonly in the form of a hexagonal network (Abrikosov, 1957). The existence of this vortex lattice was... 

---