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Superinsulator and quantum synchronization

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Abstract

Synchronized oscillators are ubiquitous in nature1, and synchronization plays a key part in various classical and quantum phenomena. Several experiments2,3,4 have shown that in thin superconducting films, disorder enforces the droplet-like electronic texture—superconducting islands immersed into a normal matrix—and that tuning disorder drives the system from superconducting to insulating behaviour. In the vicinity of the transition, a distinct state4 forms: a Cooper-pair insulator, with thermally activated conductivity. It results from synchronization of the phase of the superconducting order parameter at the islands across the whole system5. Here we show that at a certain finite temperature, a Cooper-pair insulator undergoes a transition to a superinsulating state with infinite resistance. We present experimental evidence of this transition in titanium nitride films and show that the superinsulating state is dual to the superconducting state: it is destroyed by a sufficiently strong critical magnetic field, and breaks down at some critical voltage that is analogous to the critical current in superconductors.

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Figure 1: Two-dimensional Josephson junction array.
Figure 2: Conductivity in normal-insulating and superinsulating states.
Figure 3: Magnetic-field-tuned transition to superinsulating state.
Figure 4: Sketch of dual-phase diagrams for a superconductor and a superinsulator.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Y. Galperin, V. F. Gantmakher and A. Kamenev for discussions. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy Office of Science, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the “Quantum Macrophysics” Program of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Material Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA,

    Valerii M. Vinokur & Tatyana I. Baturina

  2. Institute of Semiconductor Physics, 630090, Novosibirsk, Russia ,

    Tatyana I. Baturina & Aleksey Yu. Mironov

  3. Institut für experimentelle und angewandte Physik, Universität Regensburg, D-93040 Regensburg, Germany

    Tatyana I. Baturina, Aleksey Yu. Mironov & Christoph Strunk

  4. Theoretische Physik III, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, D-44801 Bochum, Germany ,

    Mikhail V. Fistul

  5. IMEC, Kapeldreef 75, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium ,

    Mikhail R. Baklanov

Authors
  1. Valerii M. Vinokur
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  2. Tatyana I. Baturina
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  3. Mikhail V. Fistul
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  4. Aleksey Yu. Mironov
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  5. Mikhail R. Baklanov
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  6. Christoph Strunk
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Correspondence to Valerii M. Vinokur.

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Vinokur, V., Baturina, T., Fistul, M. et al. Superinsulator and quantum synchronization. Nature 452, 613–615 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06837

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06837

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