Theory of the pairbreaking superconductor-metal transition in nanowires

Abstract

We present a detailed description of a zero temperature phase transition between superconducting and diffusive metallic states in very thin wires due to a Cooper pair breaking mechanism. The dissipative critical theory contains current reducing fluctuations in the guise of both quantum and thermally activated phase slips. A full cross-over phase diagram is computed via an expansion in the inverse number of complex components of the superconducting order parameter (one in the physical case). The fluctuation corrections to the direct current electrical and thermal conductivities are determined, and we find that the electrical conductivity has a non-monotonic temperature dependence in the metallic phase which may be consistent with recent experimental results on ultra-narrow wires. In the quantum critical regime, the ratio of the thermal to electrical conductivity displays a linear temperature dependence and thus the Wiedemann-Franz law is obeyed, with a new universal experimentally verifiable Lorenz number.

91 pages, 18 figures, single column format

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• The observation of in-plane quantum Griffiths singularity in two-dimensional crystalline superconductors
• Quantum phase transitions in two-dimensional superconductors: a review on recent experimental progress
• Dynamical conductivity at the dirty superconductor-metal quantum phase transition
• Signatures of the nematic ordering transitions in the thermal conductivity of d-wave superconductors
• Modeling and simulations of quantum phase slips in ultrathin superconducting wires
• The activated scaling behavior of quantum Griffiths singularity in two-dimensional superconductors
• Quantum Griffiths singularity in a three-dimensional superconductor to Anderson critical insulator transition
• Transport anomalies in multiband superconductors near quantum critical point