Nanopattern-stimulated superconductor-insulator transition in thin TiN films

We present the results of the comparative study of the influence of disorder on transport properties in continuous and nanoperforated TiN films. We show that nanopatterning turns a thin TiN film into an array of superconducting weak links and stimulates both, the disorder- and magnetic field-driven superconductor-to-insulator transitions, pushing them to lower degree of disorder. We find that nanopatterning enhances the role of the two-dimensional Coulomb interaction in the system transforming the originally insulating film into a more pronounced insulator. We observe magnetoresistance oscillations reflecting collective behaviour of the multiconnected nanopatterned superconducting film in the wide range of temperatures and uncover the physical mechanism of these oscillations as phase slips in superconducting weak link network.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Nonequilibrium mesoscopic superconductors in a fluctuational regime

We show that there exist a class of nonequilibrium systems for which a non-equilibrium analog of the Ginzburg-Landau (GL) functional can be constructed and propose the procedure for its derivation. As an example, we consider a small superconductor island of the size less than the coherence length in a stationary nonequlibrium state. We find the GL expansion of the free energy functional of such a system and analyze the dependence of the coefficients of the expansion upon the external drive and the non-equilibrium distribution functions.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Stimulation of the fluctuation superconductivity by the PT-symmetry

We discuss fluctuations near the second order phase transition where the free energy has an additional non-Hermitian term. The spectrum of the fluctuations changes when the odd-parity potential amplitude exceeds the critical value corresponding to the PT-symmetry breakdown in the topological structure of the Hilbert space of the effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. We calculate the fluctuation contribution to the differential resistance of a superconducting weak link and find the manifestation of the PT-symmetry breaking in its temperature evolution. We successfully validate our theory by carrying out measurements of far from equilibrium transport in mesoscale-patterned superconducting wires.Comment: Phys. Rev. Lett 201

Far-from-equilibrium superconductor in fluctuational regime

12 pages, 5 figuresInternational audienceWe derive Ginzburg-Landau-like action for two-dimensional disordered superconductor under far-from-equilibrium conditions in a fluctuational regime. Then, utilizing it, we calculate fluctuation induced density of states, Maki-Thomson and Aslamazov-Larkin type contributions to the in-plane electrical conductivity. We apply our approach to thin superconducting film sandwiched between a gate and a substrate that have different temperatures and different electrochemical potentials