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Published November 2009 | Published
Journal Article Open

Investigating the superconductor-insulator transition in thin films using drag resistance: Theoretical analysis of a proposed experiment

Abstract

The magnetically driven superconductor-insulator transition in amorphous thin films (e.g., InO and Ta) exhibits several mysterious phenomena, such as a putative metallic phase and a huge magnetoresistance peak. Unfortunately, several conflicting categories of theories, particularly quantum-vortex condensation, and normal region percolation, explain key observations equally well. We present a experimental setup, an amorphous thin-film bilayer, where a drag resistance measurement would clarify the role quantum vortices play in the transition, and hence decisively point to the correct picture. We provide a thorough analysis of the device, which shows that the vortex paradigm gives rise to a drag with an opposite sign and orders of magnitude larger than the drag measured if competing paradigms apply.

Additional Information

© 2009 The American Physical Society. Received 5 August 2009; published 6 November 2009. It is a pleasure to thank Yonatan Dubi, Jim Eisenstein, Alexander Finkel'stein, Alex Kamenev, Yen-Hsiang Lin, Yigal Meir, Yuval Oreg, Philip Phillips, Ady Stern, Jiansheng Wu, and Ke Xu for stimulating discussions. This work was supported by the Research Corporation's Cottrell award G.R. and by NSF through Grant No. DMR-0239450 J.Y..

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August 21, 2023
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