Sheet-current distribution in a dc SQUID washer probed by vortices

We present a novel method, based on vortex imaging by low-temperature scanning electron microscopy (LTSEM), to directly image the sheet-current distribution in YBa2Cu3O7 dc SQUID washers. We show that the LTSEM vortex signals are simply related to the scalar stream function describing the vortex-free circulating sheet-current distribution J. Unlike previous inversion methods that infer the current distribution from the measured magnetic field, our method uses pinned vortices as local detectors for J. Our experimental results are in very good agreement with numerical calculations of J.