Superconductor–insulator transition in nanowires and nanowire arrays

Abstract

Superconducting nanowires are the dual elements to Josephson junctions, with quantum phase-slip (QPS) processes replacing the tunneling of Cooper pairs. When the QPS amplitude E _S is much smaller than the inductive energy E _L , the nanowire responds as a superconducting inductor. When the inductive energy is small, the response is capacitive. The crossover at low temperatures as a function of E _S / E _L is discussed and compared with earlier experimental results. For one-dimensional and two-dimensional arrays of nanowires quantum phase transitions are expected as a function of E _S / E _L . They can be tuned by a homogeneous magnetic frustration.

Keywords

• superconducting nanowires
• quantum phase-slip
• superconducting
• quantum phase transition