New paradigm for a magnetic field driven SIT

 · Invited

Abstract

We show that while orbital magnetic field and disorder, acting individually weaken superconductivity, acting together they produce an intriguing evolution of a two-dimensional type-II s-wave superconductor[1-4]. For weak disorder, the critical field at which the superfluid density collapses matches the field at which the superconducting energy gap gets suppressed to zero. With increasing disorder, these two fields diverge from each other creating a pseudogap region. We predict a transformation from "Abrikosov" metallic vortex cores for weak disorder to "Josephson" vortices with gapped and insulating cores for higher disorder. Our results explain the disappearance of the celebrated zero-bias Caroli-de Gennes-Matricon (CdGM) peak in experiments on disordered superconductors. The emergence of the pseudogap phase provides a natural understanding of the long standing puzzle of the gigantic magnetoresistance peak observed as a function of magnetic field in thin disordered superconducting films.

** In collaboration with Anushree Datta, Anurag Banerjee, and, Amit Ghosal, IISER, Kolkata.
**Funding: N.T. acknowledges the support of the DOE-BES Grant No. DE-FG02- 07ER46423.
***References: [1] Dynamical Conductivity across the Disorder-Tuned Superconductor-Insulator Transition, M. Swanson, Y-L Loh, M. Randeria, and N. Trivedi, Phys. Rev. X 4 021007 (2014).
[2] Single and two-particle energy gaps across the disorder-driven superconductor-insulator transition, Karim Bouadim, Yen Lee Loh, Mohit Randeria, Nandini Trivedi, Nature Physics 7 884-889 (2011).
[3] Inhomogeneous Pairing in Highly Disordered s-wave Superconductors, Amit Ghosal, Mohit Randeria, and Nandini Trivedi, Phys. Rev. B 65 014501 (2002).
[4] Role of Spatial Amplitude Fluctuations in Highly Disordered s-Wave Superconductors, Amit Ghosal, Mohit Randeria, and Nandini Trivedi, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81 3940 (1998).

Presenters

  • Nandini Trivedi

    • Ohio State Univ - Columbus
    • The Ohio State University
    • Physics, The Ohio State University
    • Department of Physics, Ohio State Univ - Columbus

Authors

  • Nandini Trivedi

    • Ohio State Univ - Columbus
    • The Ohio State University
    • Physics, The Ohio State University
    • Department of Physics, Ohio State Univ - Columbus