Charge Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in superconducting NbTiN films

Alexey Yu Mironov; Daniel M Silevitch; Thomas Proslier; Svetlana V Postolova; Maria V Burdastyh; Anton K Gutakovskii; Thomas F Rosenbaum; Valerii V Vinokur; Tatyana I Baturina

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-22451-1

Charge Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in superconducting NbTiN films

Sci Rep. 2018 Mar 6;8(1):4082. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-22451-1.

Authors

Alexey Yu Mironov^{1

2}, Daniel M Silevitch³, Thomas Proslier⁴, Svetlana V Postolova^{1

2}, Maria V Burdastyh^{1

2}, Anton K Gutakovskii^{1

2}, Thomas F Rosenbaum³, Valerii V Vinokur^{5

6}, Tatyana I Baturina^{1

2

7

8}

Affiliations

¹ A. V. Rzhanov Institute of Semiconductor Physics SB RAS, 13 Lavrentjev Avenue, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia.
² Novosibirsk State University, Pirogova str. 2, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia.
³ Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA.
⁴ Institut de recherches sur les lois fundamentales de l'univers, Commissariat de l'énergie atomique et aux énergies renouvelables-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
⁵ Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Ave, Argonne, IL, 60439, USA. vinokour@anl.gov.
⁶ Computation Institute, University of Chicago, 5735 S. Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA. vinokour@anl.gov.
⁷ The James Franck Institute and Department of Physics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA.
⁸ Departamento de Física de la Materia Condensada, Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales Nicolás Cabrera and Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049, Madrid, Spain.

Abstract

Three decades after the prediction of charge-vortex duality in the critical vicinity of the two-dimensional superconductor-insulator transition (SIT), one of the fundamental implications of this duality-the charge Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) transition that should occur on the insulating side of the SIT-has remained unobserved. The dual picture of the process points to the existence of a superinsulating state endowed with zero conductance at finite temperature. Here, we report the observation of the charge BKT transition on the insulating side of the SIT in 10 nm thick NbTiN films, identified by the BKT critical behavior of the temperature and magnetic field dependent resistance, and map out the magnetic-field dependence of the critical temperature of the charge BKT transition. Finally, we ascertain the effects of the finite electrostatic screening length and its divergence at the magnetic field-tuned approach to the superconductor-insulator transition.