Related papers: Instability of insulators near quantum phase trans…
Current-voltage characteristics in the insulator bordering superconductivity in disordered thin films exhibit current jumps of several orders of magnitude due to the development of a thermally bistable electronic state at very low…
Continuous quantum phase transitions are widely assumed and frequently observed in various systems of quantum particles or spins. Their characteristic trait involves scaling laws governing a second-order, gradual suppression of the order…
In these lectures, superconductivity in impure thin films close to the absolute zero of temperature is discussed. The behavior as function of the applied magnetic field and the amount of impurities suggests the presence of a…
The magnetic-field-tuned quantum superconductor-insulator transitions of disordered amorphous indium oxide films are a paradigm in the study of quantum phase transitions, and exhibit power-law scaling behavior. For superconducting indium…
An increasing current through a superconductor can result in a discontinuous increase in the differential resistance at the critical current. This critical current is typically associated either with breaking of Cooper-pairs (de-pairing) or…
The superconductor-insulator transition (SIT) is considered an excellent example of a quantum phase transition which is driven by quantum fluctuations at zero temperature. The quantum critical point is characterized by a diverging…
The magnetic field driven superconductor to insulator transition in thin films was theoretically analyzed via a vortex-charge duality transformation applied to the Hamiltonian. Vortices condensation was conjectured as the underline physical…
We study the insulating phase of disordered indium oxide films that undergo a field-tuned superconductor-insulator transition. The transport measurements in a perpendicular magnetic field show distinct regimes of strongly fluctuating…
We investigate ultrathin superconducting TiN films, which are very close to the localization threshold. Perpendicular magnetic field drives the films from the superconducting to an insulating state, with very high resistance. Further…
It is argued that a superconducting instability appears in the electronic states on the surface of a topological insulator due purely to electromagnetic interactions. The discussion of this instability is based on the analysis of the…
Experimental studies of magnetoresistance in thin superconducting strips subject to a perpendicular magnetic field B exhibit a multitude of transitions, from superconductor to insulator and vice versa alternately. Motivated by this…
We present a theory of the metal-insulator transition in a disordered two-dimensional electron gas. A quantum critical point, separating the metallic phase which is stabilized by electronic interactions, from the insulating phase where…
We study the disorder driven superconductor to insulator transition in amorphous films of high carrier-concentration indium-oxide. Using thin films with various sizes and aspect ratios we show that the `critical' sheet-resistance…
Strongly disordered superconductors in a magnetic field display many characteristic properties of type-II superconductivity--- except at low temperatures where an anomalous linear $T$-dependence of the resistive critical field $B_{c2}$ is…
We investigate the impact of quantum and thermal phase fluctuations on the suppression of superconducting order in two-dimensional systems. Within the two-dimensional quantum XY model in the phase representation, where on-site interaction…
Quantum phase transitions typically result in a broadened critical or crossover region at nonzero temperature. Josephson arrays are a model of this phenomenon, exhibiting a superconductor-insulator transition at a critical wave impedance,…
Quantum phase transitions are sudden changes in the ground-state wavefunction of a many-body system that can occur as a control parameter such as a concentration or a field strength is varied. They are driven purely by the competition…
A quantum phase transition that was recently observed in a high-mobility silicon MOSFET is analyzed in terms of a scaling theory. The most striking characteristic of the transition is a divergence of the thermopower, according to an inverse…
Topological quantum phase transitions are characterised by changes in global topological invariants. These invariants classify many body systems beyond the conventional paradigm of local order parameters describing spontaneous symmetry…
The position of a field-tuned superconductor-insulator quantum transition occuring in disordered thin films is examined within the mean field approximation. Our calculation shows that the microscopic disorder-induced reduction of the…