Amplitude, phase, and topological fluctuations shaping the complex phase diagram of two-dimensional superconductors

Abstract

We study the amplitude and phase fluctuations of the Ginzburg-Landau quasiorder parameter for superconductors in two spatial dimensions. Starting from the mean-field critical temperature Tc0, we calculate the beyond-mean-field critical temperature Tc by including thermal fluctuations of the quasiorder parameter within the Gaussian level. Moreover, from our beyond-mean-field results, we derive the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless critical temperature TBKT, which takes into account topological vortex-antivortex excitations in the phase fluctuations as well as the amplitude fluctuations, to obtain the shifts of transition temperatures. We elucidate how the Gaussian thermal fluctuations and phase fluctuations associated with vortex excitations affect thermodynamic properties by determining the H−T phase diagram for a type-II superconductor and computing the critical behaviors of the heat capacity, which are experimentally accessible, allowing the characterization of the cascade of different kinds of fluctuations in 2D superconductors.

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