Superconductor-Insulator Magneto-Oscillations in Superconducting Strips

Abstract

The magnetoresistance of thin superconducting strips subject to a perpendicular magnetic field B and low temperatures T manifests a sequence of alternating superconductor-insulator transitions (SIT). We study this phenomenon within a quasi one-dimensional (1D) model for the quantum dynamics of vortices in a line-junction between coupled parallel SC wires, at parameters close to their SIT. Mapping the vortex system to 1D Fermions at a chemical potential dictated by B, we find that a quantum phase transition of the Ising type occurs at critical values of the vortex filling, from a SC phase near integer filling to an insulator near 1/2-filling. For T->0, the resulting magnetoresistance R(B) exhibits oscillations similar to the experimental observation.

4 pages + a bit (4 in the journal), 1 figure. This is the published version (appeared as Editor's Suggestion, June 30 2011)

References in corpus (1)

• Heat transport of clean spin-ladders coupled to phonons: Umklapp scattering and drag

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• Helical quantum Hall Edge modes in bilayer graphene: a realization of quantum spin-ladders
• Nernst Effect as a Signature of Quantum Fluctuations in Quasi-1D Superconductors
• Quantum Phases of a Weakly Disordered Josephson Ladder