High field termination of a Cooper-pair insulator

Abstract

We conducted a systematic study of the disorder dependence of the termination of superconductivity, at high magnetic fields (B), of amorphous indium oxide films. Our lower disorder films show conventional behavior where superconductivity is terminated with a transition to a metallic state at a well-defined critical field, Bc2. Our higher disorder samples undergo a B-induced transition into a strongly insulating state, which terminates at higher B's forming an insulating peak. We demonstrate that the B terminating this peak coincides with Bc2 of the lower disorder samples. Additionally we show that, beyond this field, these samples enter a different insulating state in which the magnetic field dependence of the resistance is weak. These results provide crucial evidence for the importance of Cooper-pairing in the insulating peak regime.

5 pages, 3 figures, minor changes

References in corpus (6)

• Localization of preformed Cooper-pairs in disordered superconductors
• Nature of the superconductor-insulator transition in disordered superconductors
• Disorder-Induced Inhomogeneities of the Superconducting State Close to the Superconductor-Insulator Transition
• Localized Superconductivity in the Quantum-Critical Region of the Disorder-Driven Superconductor-Insulator Transition in TiN Thin Films
• Phase fluctuations in a strongly disordered s-wave superconductor close to the metal-insulator transition
• Quantum Metallicity on the High-Field Side of the Superconductor-Insulator Transition

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Low-energy dynamical response of an Anderson insulator with local attraction
• Non-equilibrium restoration of duality symmetry in the vicinity of the superconductor-insulator transition