Superconductor‐Insulator Transitions in the Two‐Dimensional Limit

NOV 01, 1998

Increasing the disorder of an ultrathin superconducting film may produce a quantum phase transition at zero temperature to an insulating state.

DOI: 10.1063/1.882069

Allen M. Goldman

Nina Marković

The investigation of superconductivity in the presence of disorder began 60 years ago with the work of Alexander Shal’nikov at the Institute for Physical Problems in Moscow. The subject has played an ongoing role in condensed matter physics over the years. Interest has recently been heightened by the possibility that the disorder‐driven or magnetic‐field‐driven quenching of superconductivity in systems at the limit of zero temperature and two dimensions might be quantum phase transitions. That would link the physics of the superconductor‐insulator transition in thin films to other systems believed to exhibit quantum phase transitions—for example, helium‐4 in porous media, high temperature superconductors, Josephson‐junction arrays, two‐dimensional electron gases and various spin systems.

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More about the Authors

Allen M. Goldman. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Nina Marković. Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands.