Giant proximity effect in a phase-fluctuating superconductor

Abstract

When a tunneling barrier between two superconductors is formed by a normal material that would be a superconductor in the absence of phase fluctuations, the resulting Josephson effect can undergo an enormous enhancement. We establish this novel proximity effect by a general argument as well as a numerical simulation and argue that it may underlie recent experimental observations of the giant proximity effect between two cuprate superconductors separated by a barrier made of the same material rendered normal by severe underdoping.

4 pages, 3 figures; version to appear in PRL (results of simulations in 3d added). For related work and info visit http://www.physics.ubc.ca/~franz

References in corpus (6)

• Field-enhanced diamagnetism in intense magnetic field in the pseudogap state of the cuprate $\rm Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+δ}
• Quantum critical behaviour in the superfluid density of strongly underdoped ultrathin cuprate films
• A model of phase fluctuations in a lattice d-wave superconductor: application to the Cooper pair charge-density-wave in underdoped cuprates
• Proximity effect in clean strong/weak/strong superconducting tri-layers
• 4D-XY quantum criticality in a doped Mott insulator
• Finite temperature superfluid density in very underdoped cuprates

Cited by in corpus (11)

• The Meissner effect in a strongly underdoped cuprate above its critical temperature
• Phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau-like theory for superconductivity in the cuprates
• Triple-gap superconductivity of MgB2 - (La,Sr)MnO3 composite. Which of the gaps is proximity induced?
• Pairing and the phase diagram of the normal coherence length ${\xi }_N(T,x)$ above $T_c$ of $L{a}_{2-x}S{r}_{x}Cu{O}_4$ thin films probed by the Josephson effect
• Interface superconductivity in La${}_{1.48}$Nd${}_{0.4}$Sr${}_{0.12}$CuO${}_4$/La${}_{1.84}$Sr${}_{0.16}$CuO${}_4$ bilayers
• Superconducting proximity effect in flat band systems
• Type-II Bose-Mott insulators
• Anomalous superconducting proximity effect of planar Pb-RhPb2 heterojunctions in the clean limit
• Enhanced Josephson tunneling between high temperature superconductors through a normal pseudogap underdoped cuprate with a finite energy cooperon
• Macroscopic-ranged proximity effect in graphite
• Macroscale three-dimensional proximity effect in disordered normal/superconductor nanocomposites