Evidence of spatial inhomogeneity near the onset of magnetically induced insulating state in superconducting thin films

Abstract

Non-monotonic differential resistance (dV/dI) is observed in magnetically induced insulating films which exhibit apparent superconductor-metal-insulator transitions in the low temperature limit; at low bias currents the nonlinear transport is insulator-like while at high bias currents it is characteristic of metallic phase. The non-monotonic dV/dI may be evidence that the insulating state consists of metallic domains connected by point contacts (insulating gaps), implying that spatial inhomogeneities play a dominant role in determining the nature of the apparent metal-insulator transition.

4 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Magnetically Induced Metallic Phase in Superconducting Tantalum Films
• Non-thermal origin of nonlinear transport across magnetically induced superconductor-metal-insulator transition

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Highly crystalline 2D superconductors
• Signature of Cooper Pairs in the Non-Superconducting Phases of Amorphous Superconducting Tantalum Films
• Deficiency of the scaling collapse as an indicator of a superconductor-insulator quantum phase transition