Superconductivity controlled by the magnetic state of ferromagnetic nanoparticles

Novel hybrid superconductor/ferromagnetic particles structures are presented. Arrays of Co submicron particles were fabricated on overlap, edge type Josephson junctions and on a narrow Nb microbridge by means of high-resolution e-beam lithography.We observed a strong dependence between the magnetic state of the particles and the field-dependent critical $I_c(H)$ of these structures.