Related papers: Approaching Zero-Temperature Metallic States in Me…
A theory of the zero-temperature superconductor-metal transition is developed for an array of superconductive islands (of size d) coupled via a disordered two-dimensional conductor with the dimensionless conductance g>>1. At T=0…
We construct a theory of quantum fluctuatons in a regular array of small superconductive islands connected via low-resistance tunnel contacts to a dirty thin metal film. Electron-electron interaction in the film is assumed to be repulsive.…
The superconductor-insulator transition in two dimensions has been widely investigated as a paradigmatic quantum phase transition. The topic remains controversial, however, because many experiments exhibit a metallic regime with saturating…
Properties of disordered thin films are discussed based on the viewpoint that superconducting islands are formed in the system. These lead to superconducting correlations confined in space, which are known to form spontaneously in thin…
Normal-metal films overlaid with arrays of superconducting islands undergo Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) superconducting transitions at a temperature $T_{BKT}$. We present measurements of T$_{BKT}$ for arrays of mesoscopic Nb…
We present a theory for the pseudo-gap state recently observed at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface, based on superconducting islands embedded in a metallic background. Superconductivity within each island is BCS-like, and the local critical…
All non-interacting two-dimensional electronic systems are expected to exhibit an insulating ground state. This conspicuous absence of the metallic phase has been challenged only in the case of low-disorder, low density, semiconducting…
We study one dimensional chains of superconducting islands with a particular emphasis on the regime in which every second island is switched into its normal state, thus forming a superconductor-insulator-normal metal (S-I-N) repetition…
Competing phenomena in low dimensional systems can generate exotic electronic phases, either through symmetry breaking or a non-trivial topology. In two-dimensional (2D) systems, the interplay between superfluidity, disorder and repulsive…
We present results on disordered amorphous films which are expected to undergo a field-tuned Superconductor-Insulator Transition. Based on low-field data and I-V characteristics, we find evidence of a low temperature Metal-to-Superconductor…
Electrons confined to two dimensions display an unexpected diversity of behaviors as they are cooled to absolute zero. Noninteracting electrons are predicted to eventually "localize" into an insulating ground state, and it has long been…
We study the electron transport through a system of two low-capacitance metal islands connected in series between two electrodes. The work is motivated in part by experiments on semiconducting double-dots, which show intriguing effects…
We propose a characterization of zero temperature phases in disordered superconductors on the basis of the nature of quasiparticle transport. In three dimensional systems, there are two distinct phases in close analogy to the distinction…
As a superconducting thin film becomes disordered and subject to an increasing magnetic field, a point is reached when it undergoes a transition from a superconducting to an insulating state. We use the Bogoliubov-De-Gennes equations and a…
We study mesoscopic disorder fluctuations in an anisotropic gap superconductor, which lead to the spatial variations of the local pairing temperature and formation of superconducting islands above the mean-field transition. We derive the…
Two-dimensional (2D) materials are not expected to be metals at low temperature due to electron localization. Consistent with this, pioneering studies on thin films reported only superconducting and insulating ground states, with a direct…
The existence of "superconducting islands" (i.e., locally confined regions with superconducting correlations) in amorphous superconducting thin films can account for numerous experimental findings. Such spatial fluctuations in the…
Understanding the roles of disorder and superconducting phase fluctuation in superconductivity has been a long-standing challenge. For example, while the phase fluctuation is expected to destroy the superconductivity of intrinsically…
Using an analysis similar to that of Imry and Wortis, it is shown that the apparent first order superconductor to metal transition, which has been claimed to exist at low values of the magnetic field in a two-dimensional field-tuned system…
Motivated by recent experimental data on thin film superconductors and oxide interfaces we propose a random-resistor network apt to describe the occurrence of a metal-superconductor transition in a two-dimensional electron system with…