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Analysis of institutional authors

Perconte, DavidAuthor

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February 11, 2025
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First-order quantum breakdown of superconductivity in an amorphous superconductor

Publicated to: Nature Physics. 21 (1): - 2025-01-03 21(1), DOI: 10.1038/s41567-024-02713-8

Authors:

Charpentier, Thibault; Perconte, David; Leger, Sebastien; Amin, Kazi Rafsanjani; Blondelle, Florent; Gay, Frederic; Buisson, Olivier; Ioffe, Lev; Khvalyuk, Anton; Poboiko, Igor; Feigel'man, Mikhail; Roch, Nicolas; Sacepe, Benjamin
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Affiliations

CENN Nanoctr, Ljubljana, Slovenia - Author
Google Res, Mountain View, CA USA - Author
Jozef Stefan Inst, Ljubljana, Slovenia - Author
Karlsruhe Inst Technol, Karlsruhe, Germany - Author
Univ Grenoble Alpes, Inst Neel, CNRS, Grenoble INP, Grenoble, France - Author
Univ Grenoble Alpes, LPMMC, Grenoble, France - Author
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Abstract

Continuous quantum phase transitions are widely assumed and frequently observed in various systems of quantum particles or spins. Their characteristic trait is a second-order, gradual suppression of the order parameter as the quantum critical point is approached. The localization of Cooper pairs in disordered superconductors and the resulting breakdown of superconductivity have long stood as a prototypical example. Here we show a departure from this paradigm, in which a discontinuous first-order quantum phase transition is tuned by disorder. We measure the plasmon spectrum in superconducting microwave resonators on amorphous superconducting films of indium oxide to provide evidence for a marked jump in both the zero-temperature superfluid stiffness and the transition temperature at the critical disorder. This discontinuous transition sheds light on the role of repulsive interactions between Cooper pairs and the subsequent competition between superconductivity and insulating Cooper-pair glass. Furthermore, we show that the critical temperature of the films no longer relates to the pairing amplitude but aligns with the superfluid stiffness, consistent with the pseudogap regime of preformed Cooper pairs. Our findings raise fundamental new questions about the role of disorder in quantum phase transitions and carry implications for superinductances in quantum circuits.
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Keywords

DensityFluctuationsGapLocalizationPhase-transitionsSuppressionSystemTemperature

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Nature Physics due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2025, it was in position 5/114, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Physics, Multidisciplinary. Notably, the journal is positioned above the 90th percentile.

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Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-04-05:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 31.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 31 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 42.
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 14 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions in news outlets: 4 (Altmetric).
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Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: France; Germany; Slovenia; United States of America.

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Awards linked to the item

We thank D. Basko, L. Benfatto, J. Delahaye, T. Grenet, V. Kravtsov, M. Muller, M. Scheffler and C. Strunk for valuable discussions. We thank E. Eyraud for assistance with the cryogenics and J. P. Martinez for the preliminary measurements. T.C. and B.S. acknowledge funding from the ANR Project No. ANR-19-CE30-0014-CP-Insulators. A.K. is grateful for support from the Laboratoire d'excellence LANEF in Grenoble (ANR-10-LABX-51-01). B.S. has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the ERC grant SUPERGRAPH no. 866365. N.R. has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the ERC grant SuperProtected no. 101001310. N.R., B.S. and D.P. acknowledge funding from the ANR agency under the 'France 2030' plan, with reference no. ANR-22-PETQ-0003. I.P. acknowledges support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) via grant no. MI 658/14-1.
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