No Arabic abstract
We first review evidence for the Cooper pair insulator (CPI) phase in amorphous nanohoneycomb (NHC) films. We then extend our analysis of superconducting islands induced by film thickness variations in NHC films to examine the evolution of island sizes through the magnetic field-driven SIT. Finally, using the islanding picture, we present a plausible model for the appearance and behavior of the CPI phase in amorphous NHC films.
The preformed-pairs theory of pseudogap physics in high-$T_C$ superconductors predicts a nonanalytic $T$-dependence for the $ab$-plane superfluid fraction, $rho_S$, at low temperatures in underdoped cuprates. We report high-precision measurements of $rho_S(T)$ on severely underdoped YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+x}$ and Y$_{0.8}$Ca$_{0.2}$Ba$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+x}$ films. At low $T$, $rho_S$ looks more like $1 - T^2$ than $1 - T^{3/2}$, in disagreement with theory.
We apply a recently-developed low-field technique to inductively measure the critical pair momentum $p_c$ in thin, underdoped films of Y$_{1-x}$Ca$_{x}$Ba$_{2}$Cu$_{3}$O$_{7-delta}$ and Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+delta}$ reflecting a wide range of hole doping. We observe that $p_c propto hbar/xi$ scales with $T_c$ and therefore superfluid density $n_s(Trightarrow0)$ in our two-dimensional cuprate films. This relationship was famously predicted by a universal model of the cuprates with a textit{doping-independent} superconducting gap, but has not been observed by high field measurements of the coherence length $xi$ due to field-induced phenomena not included in the theory.
Unusual transport properties of superconducting (SC) materials, such as the under doped cuprates, low dimensional superconductors in strong magnetic fields, and insulating films near the Insulator Superconductor Transition (IST), have been attributed to the formation of inhomogeneous phases. Difficulty correlating the behaviors with observations of the inhomogeneities make these connections uncertain. Of primary interest here are proposals that insulating films near the IST, which show an activated resistance and giant positive magnetoresistance, contain islands of Cooper Pairs (CPs). Here we present evidence that these types of inhomogeneities are essential to such an insulating phase in amorphous Bi (a-Bi) films deposited on substrates patterned with nanometer-sized holes. The patterning induces film thickness variations, and corresponding coupling constant variations, that transform the composition of the insulator from localized electrons to CPs. Analyses near the thickness-tuned ISTs of films on nine different substrates show that weak links between SC islands dominate the transport. In particular, the ISTs all occur when the link resistance approaches the resistance quantum for pairs. These observations lead to a detailed picture of CPs localized by spatial variations of the superconducting coupling constant.
A Cooper pair insulator (CPI) phase emerges near the superconductor-insulator transitions of a number of strongly-disordered thin film systems. Much recent study has focused on a mechanism driving the underlying Cooper pair localization. We present data showing that a CPI phase develops in amorphous Pb$_{0.9}$Bi$_{0.1}$ films deposited onto nano-porous anodized aluminum oxide surfaces just as it has been shown to develop for a-Bi films. This result confirms the assertion that the CPI phase emerges due to the structure of the substrate. It supports the picture that nanoscale film thickness variations induced by the substrate drive the localization. Moreover, it implies that the CPI phase can be induced in any superconducting material that can be deposited onto this surface.
The advent of quantum optical techniques based on superconducting circuits has opened new regimes in the study of the non-linear interaction of light with matter. Of particular interest has been the creation of non-classical states of light, which are essential for continuous-variable quantum information processing, and could enable quantum-enhanced measurement sensitivity. Here we demonstrate a device consisting of a superconducting artificial atom, the Cooper pair transistor, embedded in a superconducting microwave cavity that may offer a path toward simple, continual production of non-classical photons. By applying a dc voltage to the atom, we use the ac Josephson effect to inject photons into the cavity. The backaction of the photons on single-Cooper-pair tunneling events results in a new regime of simultaneous quantum coherent transport of Cooper pairs and microwave photons. This single-pair Josephson laser offers great potential for the production of amplitude-squeezed photon states and a rich environment for the study of the quantum dynamics of nonlinear systems.