The temperature dependence of the vortex penetration and expulsion fields in mesoscopic superconducting disks are studied. We experimentally find that the penetration field decreases with increasing temperature for all values of the vorticity. On the other hand, the temperature dependence of the expulsion fields shows two regimes: For some vortex states the expulsion field increases with temperature, while for other states it is almost temperature independent. A numerical study based on the nonlinear Ginzburg-Landau theory confirms that the former regime corresponds to multivortex states and the latter to giant vortex states. The origin of this difference is discussed.

• Received 18 January 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.71.140502