Superconductor-insulator transitions and magnetoresistance oscillations in superconducting strips

Yeshayahu Atzmon; Efrat Shimshoni

doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.83.220518

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Superconductor-insulator transitions and magnetoresistance oscillations in superconducting strips

Yeshayahu Atzmon, Efrat Shimshoni

DOI 10.1103/PhysRevB.83.220518 · Physical Review B

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Abstract

The magnetoresistance of thin superconducting (SC) strips subject to a perpendicular magnetic field B and low temperatures T manifests a sequence of alternating SC-insulator transitions (SITs). We study this phenomenon within a quasi-one-dimensional (1D) model for the quantum dynamics of vortices in a line junction between coupled parallel SC wires, at parameters close to their SITs. Mapping the vortex system to 1D Fermions at a chemical potential dictated by B, we find that a quantum phase transition of the Ising type occurs at critical values of the vortex filling, from a SC phase near integer filling to an insulator near 1/2 filling. For T→0, the resulting magnetoresistance R(B) exhibits oscillations similar to the experimental observation.