In a type-II superconductor the gap variation in the core of a vortex
line induces a local charge modulation. Accounting for metallic screen
ing, we determine the line charge of individual vortices and calculate
the electric field distribution in the half space above a field penet
rated superconductor. The resulting field is that of an atomic size di
pole d similar to ea(B) (z) over cap, a(B) = h(2)/me(2) is the Bohr ra
dius, acting on a force microscope in the pico- to femto-Newton range.