Superconductor to weak-insulator transitions in disordered tantalum nitride films

Breznay, Nicholas P.; Tendulkar, Mihir; Zhang, Li; Lee, Sang -Chul; Kapitulnik, Aharon

doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.96.134522

Title: Superconductor to weak-insulator transitions in disordered tantalum nitride films

Journal Article · Tue Oct 31 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Physical Review B

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.96.134522· OSTI ID:1410604

Breznay, Nicholas P. ^[1]; Tendulkar, Mihir ^[2]; Zhang, Li ^[2]; Lee, Sang -Chul ^[2]; Kapitulnik, Aharon ^[2]

Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States); Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA (United States)
Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States)

Here, we study the two-dimensional superconductor-insulator transition (SIT) in thin films of tantalum nitride. At zero magnetic field, films can be disorder-tuned across the SIT by adjusting thickness and film stoichiometry; insulating films exhibit classical hopping transport. Superconducting films exhibit a magnetic-field-tuned SIT, whose insulating ground state at high field appears to be a quantum-corrected metal. Scaling behavior at the field-tuned SIT shows classical percolation critical exponents zν ≈ 1.3, with a corresponding critical field H_c << H_c2, the upper critical field. The Hall effect exhibits a crossing point near H_c, but with a nonuniversal critical value ρ^c_xy comparable to the normal-state Hall resistivity. We propose that high-carrier-density metals will always exhibit this pattern of behavior at the boundary between superconducting and (trivially) insulating ground states.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

View Accepted Manuscript (Publisher)

Cite

Export

Save

Research Organization:: SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: NSF-DMR-9508419; AC02-76SF00515

OSTI ID:: 1410604

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1406153

Journal Information:: Physical Review B, Vol. 96, Issue 13; ISSN 2469-9950

Publisher:: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 8 works

Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (56)

Thickness-tuned superconductor-insulator transitions under magnetic field in $a$ -NbSi Marrache-Kikuchi, C. A.; Aubin, H.; Pourret, A. Physical Review B, Vol. 78, Issue 14 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.78.144520	journal	October 2008
Preferred orientation and film structure of TaN films deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering Noda, Suguru; Tepsanongsuk, Kun; Tsuji, Yoshiko Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A: Vacuum, Surfaces, and Films, Vol. 22, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1116/1.1647593	journal	March 2004
Dissipation Effects on the Superconductor-Insulator Transition in 2D Superconductors Mason, N.; Kapitulnik, A. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 82, Issue 26 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.82.5341	journal	June 1999
Superconductivity in the insulating phase above the field-tuned superconductor–insulator transition in disordered indium oxide films Steiner, Myles; Kapitulnik, Aharon Physica C: Superconductivity, Vol. 422, Issue 1-2 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physc.2005.02.014	journal	May 2005
Presence of quantum diffusion in two dimensions: Universal resistance at the superconductor-insulator transition Fisher, Matthew P. A.; Grinstein, G.; Girvin, S. M. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 64, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.64.587	journal	January 1990
Magnetically induced metallic phase in superconducting tantalum films Qin, Yongguang; Vicente, Carlos L.; Yoon, Jongsoo Physical Review B, Vol. 73, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.73.100505	journal	March 2006
Low-temperature insulating phases of uniformly disordered two-dimensional superconductors Paalanen, M. A.; Hebard, A. F.; Ruel, R. R. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 69, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.69.1604	journal	September 1992
Destruction of superconductivity in disordered materials: A dimensional crossover Crauste, O.; Couëdo, F.; Bergé, L. Physical Review B, Vol. 90, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.90.060203	journal	August 2014
Quantum metallicity in a two-dimensional insulator Butko, V. Yu.; Adams, P. W. Nature, Vol. 409, Issue 6817 https://doi.org/10.1038/35051516	journal	January 2001
Superconductivity on the localization threshold and magnetic-field-tuned superconductor-insulator transition in TiN films Baturina, T. I.; Islamov, D. R.; Bentner, J. Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics Letters, Vol. 79, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1134/1.1765178	journal	April 2004
Scaling analysis of field-tuned superconductor–insulator transition in two-dimensional tantalum thin films Park, Sungyu; Shin, Junghyun; Kim, Eunseong Scientific Reports, Vol. 7, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep42969	journal	February 2017
Localization and interaction effects in ultrathin amorphous superconducting films Graybeal, J. M.; Beasley, M. R. Physical Review B, Vol. 29, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.29.4167	journal	April 1984
Survival of superconducting correlations across the two-dimensional superconductor-insulator transition: A finite-frequency study Crane, R.; Armitage, N. P.; Johansson, A. Physical Review B, Vol. 75, Issue 18 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.75.184530	journal	May 2007
Quantum Metallicity on the High-Field Side of the Superconductor-Insulator Transition Baturina, T. I.; Strunk, C.; Baklanov, M. R. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 98, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.127003	journal	March 2007
Superconducting-Insulating Transition in Two-Dimensional $a$ -MoGe Thin Films Yazdani, Ali; Kapitulnik, Aharon Physical Review Letters, Vol. 74, Issue 15 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.74.3037	journal	April 1995
Microwave Spectroscopy Evidence of Superconducting Pairing in the Magnetic-Field-Induced Metallic State of ${InO}_{x}$ Films at Zero Temperature Liu, Wei; Pan, LiDong; Wen, Jiajia Physical Review Letters, Vol. 111, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.067003	journal	August 2013
Observation of Quantum Dissipation in the Vortex State of a Highly Disordered Superconducting Thin Film Ephron, D.; Yazdani, A.; Kapitulnik, A. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 76, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.1529	journal	February 1996
Dependence of the superconducting transition temperature on the thickness of superconducting films with different coherence lengths Prokhorov, V. G. Low Temperature Physics, Vol. 24, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.593610	journal	June 1998
Particle-hole symmetry reveals failed superconductivity in the metallic phase of two-dimensional superconducting films Breznay, Nicholas P.; Kapitulnik, Aharon Science Advances, Vol. 3, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1700612	journal	September 2017
Observation of the ghost critical field for superconducting fluctuations in a disordered TaN thin film Breznay, Nicholas P.; Kapitulnik, Aharon Physical Review B, Vol. 88, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.88.104510	journal	September 2013
Approach to a superconductor-to-Bose-insulator transition in disordered films Steiner, Myles A.; Breznay, Nicholas P.; Kapitulnik, Aharon Physical Review B, Vol. 77, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.77.212501	journal	June 2008
Onset of superconductivity in the two-dimensional limit Haviland, D. B.; Liu, Y.; Goldman, A. M. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 62, Issue 18 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.62.2180	journal	May 1989
Hydrodynamic theory of quantum fluctuating superconductivity Davison, Richard A.; Delacrétaz, Luca V.; Goutéraux, Blaise Physical Review B, Vol. 94, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.94.054502	journal	August 2016
Superconducting Pair Correlations in an Amorphous Insulating Nanohoneycomb Film Stewart, M. D.; Yin, A.; Xu, J. M. Science, Vol. 318, Issue 5854 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1149587	journal	November 2007
Mechanism and control of the metal-to-insulator transition in rocksalt tantalum nitride Yu, L.; Stampfl, C.; Marshall, D. Physical Review B, Vol. 65, Issue 24 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.65.245110	journal	June 2002
Quantum Phase Transitions Sachdev, Subir https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511973765	book	January 2011
Structural and electrical properties of tantalum nitride thin films fabricated by using reactive radio-frequency magnetron sputtering Nie, H. B.; Xu, S. Y.; Wang, S. J. Applied Physics A Materials Science & Processing, Vol. 73, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1007/s003390000691	journal	August 2001
Observation of Giant Positive Magnetoresistance in a Cooper Pair Insulator Nguyen, H. Q.; Hollen, S. M.; Stewart, M. D. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 103, Issue 15 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.157001	journal	October 2009
Superconductivity-Related Insulating Behavior Sambandamurthy, G.; Engel, L. W.; Johansson, A. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 92, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.107005	journal	March 2004
Scaling Theory of Localization: Absence of Quantum Diffusion in Two Dimensions Abrahams, E.; Anderson, P. W.; Licciardello, D. C. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 42, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.42.673	journal	March 1979
Superconducting transition temperatures of reactively sputtered films of tantalum nitride and tungsten nitride Kilbane, F. M.; Habig, P. S. Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology, Vol. 12, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1116/1.568734	journal	January 1975
Quantum phase transitions in disordered two-dimensional superconductors Fisher, Matthew P. A. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 65, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.65.923	journal	August 1990
Hall effect at the magnetic-field-tuned superconductor-insulator transition Fisher, Matthew P. A. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Vol. 177, Issue 1-3 https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-4371(91)90200-V	journal	September 1991
Superconductivity of reactivity sputtered TaN film for ULSI process Wakasugi, Katsuhiko; Tokunaga, Mie; Sumita, Taishi Physica B: Condensed Matter, Vol. 239, Issue 1-2 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0921-4526(97)00370-0	journal	August 1997
Metallic ground state in an ion-gated two-dimensional superconductor Saito, Y.; Kasahara, Y.; Ye, J. Science, Vol. 350, Issue 6259 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1259440	journal	October 2015
Phase composition and microstructure of polycrystalline and epitaxial TaNx layers grown on oxidized Si(001) and MgO(001) by reactive magnetron sputter deposition Shin, C. -S.; Kim, Y. -W.; Gall, D. Thin Solid Films, Vol. 402, Issue 1-2 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0040-6090(01)01618-2	journal	January 2002
Superconducting transition, fluctuation, and vortex motion in a two-dimensional single-crystal Nb film Hsu, J. W. P.; Kapitulnik, A. Physical Review B, Vol. 45, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.45.4819	journal	March 1992
Phase diagram of the strongly disordered $s$ -wave superconductor NbN close to the metal-insulator transition Chand, Madhavi; Saraswat, Garima; Kamlapure, Anand Physical Review B, Vol. 85, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.85.014508	journal	January 2012
Crossover from Mott to Efros-Shklovskii variable-range-hopping conductivity in ${In}_{x}$ $O_{y}$ films Rosenbaum, Ralph Physical Review B, Vol. 44, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.44.3599	journal	August 1991
Nature of the quantum metal in a two-dimensional crystalline superconductor Tsen, A. W.; Hunt, B.; Kim, Y. D. Nature Physics, Vol. 12, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3579	journal	December 2015
Localized Superconductivity in the Quantum-Critical Region of the Disorder-Driven Superconductor-Insulator Transition in TiN Thin Films Baturina, T. I.; Mironov, A. Yu.; Vinokur, V. M. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 99, Issue 25 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.257003	journal	December 2007
Coulomb gap and low temperature conductivity of disordered systems Efros, A. L.; Shklovskii, B. I. Journal of Physics C: Solid State Physics, Vol. 8, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1088/0022-3719/8/4/003	journal	February 1975
Phase Fluctuations in a Strongly Disordered $s$ -Wave NbN Superconductor Close to the Metal-Insulator Transition Mondal, Mintu; Kamlapure, Anand; Chand, Madhavi Physical Review Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.047001	journal	January 2011
Transport phase diagram for superconducting thin films of tantalum with homogeneous disorder Li, Yize; Vicente, Carlos L.; Yoon, Jongsoo Physical Review B, Vol. 81, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.81.020505	journal	January 2010
Quantum superconductor-metal transition Spivak, B.; Zyuzin, A.; Hruska, M. Physical Review B, Vol. 64, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.64.132502	journal	August 2001
Composite fermions and the field-tuned superconductor-insulator transition Mulligan, Michael; Raghu, S. Physical Review B, Vol. 93, Issue 20 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.93.205116	journal	May 2016
Broadening of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless superconducting transition by inhomogeneity and finite-size effects Benfatto, L.; Castellani, C.; Giamarchi, T. Physical Review B, Vol. 80, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.80.214506	journal	December 2009
Hall conductivity dominated by fluctuations near the superconducting transition in disordered thin films Breznay, Nicholas P.; Michaeli, Karen; Tikhonov, Konstantin S. Physical Review B, Vol. 86, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.86.014514	journal	July 2012
Duality symmetry and its breakdown in the vicinity of the superconductor–insulator transition Ovadia, Maoz; Kalok, David; Sacépé, Benjamin Nature Physics, Vol. 9, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2636	journal	June 2013
Origin of Nonlinear Transport across the Magnetically Induced Superconductor-Metal-Insulator Transition in Two Dimensions Seo, Y.; Qin, Y.; Vicente, C. L. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 97, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.057005	journal	August 2006
Reactively sputtered tantalum pentoxide thin films for integrated capacitors Riekkinen, T. Microelectronic Engineering, Vol. 70, Issue 2-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-9317(03)00384-8	journal	November 2003
Effects of dissipation on quantum phase transitions Kapitulnik, Aharon; Mason, Nadya; Kivelson, Steven A. Physical Review B, Vol. 63, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.63.125322	journal	March 2001
Superconductor‐Insulator Transitions in the Two‐Dimensional Limit Goldman, Allen M.; Marković, Nina Physics Today, Vol. 51, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.882069	journal	November 1998
Transport through Quantum Melts Shimshoni, Efrat; Auerbach, Assa; Kapitulnik, Aharon Physical Review Letters, Vol. 80, Issue 15 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.80.3352	journal	April 1998
Self-duality and a Hall-insulator phase near the superconductor-to-insulator transition in indium-oxide films Breznay, Nicholas P.; Steiner, Myles A.; Kivelson, Steven Allan Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 113, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1522435113	journal	December 2015
Epitaxial NaCl structure δ-TaNx(001): Electronic transport properties, elastic modulus, and hardness versus N/Ta ratio Shin, C. -S.; Gall, D.; Kim, Y. -W. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 90, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1391214	journal	September 2001

Cited By (2)

Quantum Griffiths singularities in TiO superconducting thin films with insulating normal states Zhang, Chao; Fan, Yunjie; Chen, Qiaoling NPG Asia Materials, Vol. 11, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41427-019-0181-3	journal	December 2019
Evolution of spin dynamics across the discontinuous metal-insulator transition in a deformable lattice Hettiarachchi, Gayan Prasad; Nishida, Yoshifumi; Masaki, Yusuke Physical Review B, Vol. 100, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.100.125154	journal	September 2019

Similar Records

Self-duality and a Hall-insulator phase near the superconductor-to-insulator transition in indium-oxide films

Journal Article · Mon Dec 28 00:00:00 EST 2015 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · OSTI ID:1410604

Breznay, Nicholas P.; Steiner, Myles A.; Kivelson, Steven Allan; +1 more

Two-dimensional superconductor-insulator quantum phase transitions in an electron-doped cuprate

Journal Article · Mon Jul 06 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Physical Review. B, Condensed Matter and Materials Physics · OSTI ID:1410604

Zeng, S. W.; Huang, Z.; Lv, W. M.; +12 more

Quantum Griffiths singularities in TiO superconducting thin films with insulating normal states

Journal Article · Sun Dec 01 00:00:00 EST 2019 · NPG Asia Materials · OSTI ID:1410604

Zhang, Chao; Fan, Yunjie; Chen, Qiaoling; +5 more

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY

Title: Superconductor to weak-insulator transitions in disordered tantalum nitride films

Citation Formats

References (56)

Cited By (2)

Similar Records

Related Subjects