No Arabic abstract
Superconducting hybrid junctions are revealing a variety of novel effects. Some of them are due to the special layout of these devices, which often use a coplanar configuration with relatively large barrier channels and the possibility of hosting Pearl vortices. A Josephson junction with a quasi ideal two-dimensional barrier has been realized by growing graphene on SiC with Al electrodes. Chemical Vapor Deposition offers centimeter size monolayer areas where it is possible to realize a comparative analysis of different devices with nominally the same barrier. In samples with a graphene gap below 400 nm, we have found evidence of Josephson coherence in presence of an incipient Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. When the magnetic field is cycled, a remarkable hysteretic collapse and revival of the Josephson supercurrent occurs. Similar hysteresis are found in granular systems and are usually justified within the Bean Critical State model (CSM). We show that the CSM, with appropriate account for the low dimensional geometry, can partly explain the odd features measured in these junctions.
The superfluid to normal fluid transition of dipolar bosons in two dimensions is studied throughout the whole density range using path integral Monte Carlo simulations and summarized in the phase diagram. While at low densities, we find good agreement with the universal results depending only on the scattering length $a_s$, at moderate and high densities, the transition temperature is strongly affected by interactions and the elementary excitation spectrum. The results are expected to be of relevance to dipolar atomic and molecular systems and indirect excitons in quantum wells.
We have considered two classical lattice-gas models, consisting of particles that carry multicomponent magnetic momenta, and associated with a two-dimensional square lattices; each site can host one particle at most, thus implicitly allowing for hard-core repulsion; the pair interaction, restricted to nearest neighbors, is ferromagnetic and involves only two components. The case of zero chemical potential has been investigated by Grand--Canonical Monte Carlo simulations; the fluctuating occupation numbers now give rise to additional fluid-like observables in comparison with the usual saturated--lattice situation; these were investigated and their possible influence on the critical behaviour was discussed. Our results show that the present model supports a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition with a transition temperature lower than that of the saturated lattice counterpart due to the presence of ``vacancies; comparisons were also made with similar models studied in the literature.
The celebrated Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) phase transition refers to a topological transition characterized, e.g., by the dissociation of vortex-antivortex pairs in two-dimensional (2D) systems. Such unusual phase has been reported in various types of materials, but never in the new class of systems made by one-unit-cell-thick (1UC) ferroelectrics (also coined as 2D ferroelectrics). Here, the use of a first-principles-based effective Hamiltonian method leads to the discovery of many fingerprints of a BKT phase existing in-between the ferroelectric and paraelectric states of 1UC tin tellurium being fully relaxed. Moreover, epitaxial strain is found to have dramatic consequences on the temperature range of such BKT phase for the 1UC SnTe. Consequently, our predictions extend the playground of BKT theory to a novel class of functional materials, and demonstrate that strain is an effective tool to alter BKT characteristics there.
One of the hallmarks of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition in two-dimensional (2D) superconductors is the universal jump of the superfluid density, that can be indirectly probed via the non-linear exponent of the current-voltage $IV$ characteristics. Here, we compare the experimental measurements of $IV$ characteristics in two cases, namely NbN thin films and SrTiO$_3$-based interfaces. While the former display a paradigmatic example of BKT-like non-linear effects, the latter do not seem to justify a BKT analysis. Rather, the observed $IV$ characteristics can be well reproduced theoretically by modelling the effect of mesoscopic inhomogeneity of the superconducting state. Our results offer an alternative perspective on the spontaneous fragmentation of the superconducting background in confined 2D systems.
The precondition for the BKT transition in thin superconducting films, the logarithmic intervortex interaction, is satisfied at distances short relative to $Lambda=2lambda^2/d$, $lambda$ is the London penetration depth of the bulk material and $d$ is the film thickness. For this reason, the search for the transition has been conducted in samples of the size $L<Lambda$. It is argued below that film edges turn the interaction into near exponential (short-range) thus making the BKT transition impossible. If however the substrate is superconducting and separated from the film by an insulated layer, the logarithmic intervortex interaction is recovered and the BKT transition should be observable.