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Collapse of superconductivity in a hybrid tin–graphene Josephson junction array

Abstract

For a Josephson junction array with hybrid superconductor/metal/superconductor junctions, a quantum phase transition from a superconducting to a two-dimensional (2D) metallic ground state is predicted to occur on increasing the junction normal state resistance. Owing to its surface-exposed 2D electron gas and its gate-tunable charge carrier density, graphene coupled to superconductors is the ideal platform to study such phase transitions between ground states. Here, we show that decorating graphene with a sparse and regular array of superconducting discs enables the continuous gate-tuning of the quantum superconductor-to-metal transition of the Josephson junction array into a zero-temperature metallic state. The suppression of proximity-induced superconductivity is a direct consequence of the emergence of quantum fluctuations of the superconducting phase of the discs. Under perpendicular magnetic fields, the competition between quantum fluctuations and disorder is responsible for the resilience of superconductivity at the lowest temperatures, supporting a glassy state that persists above the upper critical field. We provide the entire phase diagram of the disorder and magnetic-field-tuned transition to reveal the role of quantum phase fluctuations in 2D superconducting systems.

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Figure 1: Proximity-coupled array of superconducting discs on graphene.
Figure 2: Collapse of superconductivity in the proximity-coupled array.
Figure 3: Critical current in the proximity-coupled array at 0.06 K.
Figure 4: Re-entrant superconductivity under a magnetic field.
Figure 5: Phase diagram of the superconductor-to-metal transition.

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Acknowledgements

Samples were fabricated at the NANOFAB facility of the Néel Institute, the technical team of which has been of critical help for this work. We thank D. Shahar for valuable discussions and comments on the manuscript. We thank N. Bendiab, H. Bouchiat, C. Chapelier, J. Coraux, C. O. Girit, B. M. Kessler, L. Marty, A. Reserbat-Plantey and A. Zettl for stimulating discussions. This work is financially supported by ANR-BLANC projects SuperGraph, TRICO and Cleangraph, and DEFI Nano ERC Advanced Grant MolNanoSpin. Z.H. and H.A-T. acknowledge PhD grant support from the Cible program of Région Rhone-Alpes and from Nanosciences Foundation Grenoble respectively. The research of M.F. is partially supported by RFBR grant no 13-02-00963.

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Z.H., A.A., M.F., B.S. and V.B. conceived and designed the experiments. Z.H., H.A-T. and V.B. performed the experiments. Z.H., B.S., K.T., A.A. and M.F. contributed to the materials/analysis tools. Z.H., B.S., M.F., K.T. and V.B. analysed the data and wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Vincent Bouchiat.

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Han, Z., Allain, A., Arjmandi-Tash, H. et al. Collapse of superconductivity in a hybrid tin–graphene Josephson junction array. Nature Phys 10, 380–386 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2929

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