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  • Review Article
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Quantum breakdown of superconductivity in low-dimensional materials

Nature Physics volume 16, pages 734–746 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

In order to understand the emergence of superconductivity it is useful to study the reverse process and identify the various pathways that lead to its destruction. One way is to increase the amount of disorder, as this leads to an increase in Coulomb repulsion that overpowers the attractive interaction responsible for Cooper pair formation. A second pathway—applicable to uniformly disordered materials—is to utilize the competition between superconductivity and Anderson localization, as this leads to electronic granularity in which phase and amplitude fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter play a role. Finally, a third pathway is to construct an array of superconducting islands coupled by some form of proximity effect that leads from a superconducting state to a state with finite resistivity, which appears like a metallic groundstate. This Review Article summarizes recent progress in understanding of these different pathways, including experiments in low dimensional materials and application in superconducting quantum devices.

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Fig. 1: The phase diagrams of 2D superconductors.
Fig. 2: Emergent superconducting granularity.
Fig. 3: Pseudogap and collective gap of preformed Cooper pairs.
Fig. 4: Quantum breakdown of superconductivity in a mesoscopic device.
Fig. 5: Examples of applications of high microwave kinetic inductance materials.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the participants of the workshop on The Challenge of 2-Dimensional Superconductivity (8–12 July 2019, Lorentz Center, University of Leiden) for providing us with up-to-date insight into the various viewpoints on the subject. B.S. has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the H2020 programme (grant no. 637815) and from the French National Research Agency (ANR grant CP-Insulator). M.F. is supported by a Skoltech NGP grant and by the RAS program Advanced Problems in Low Temperature Physics. T.M.K. is supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation (no. 17-72-30036) and by the Würzburg-Dresden Center of Excellence on Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter (CT.QMAT).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, Institut Néel, Grenoble, France

    Benjamin Sacépé

  2. L.D. Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Chernogolovka, Russia

    Mikhail Feigel’man

  3. Skolkovo Institute for Science and Technology, Moscow, Russia

    Mikhail Feigel’man

  4. Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Teunis M. Klapwijk

  5. Institute for Topological materials, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany

    Teunis M. Klapwijk

  6. Physics Department, Moscow State University of Education, Moscow, Russia

    Teunis M. Klapwijk

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  1. Benjamin Sacépé
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  2. Mikhail Feigel’man
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  3. Teunis M. Klapwijk
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Correspondence to Benjamin Sacépé.

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Sacépé, B., Feigel’man, M. & Klapwijk, T.M. Quantum breakdown of superconductivity in low-dimensional materials. Nat. Phys. 16, 734–746 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0905-x

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