The superconductor-insulator transition in 2D dirty boson systems

Abstract

Universal properties of the zero temperature superconductor-insulator transition in two-dimensional amorphous films are studied by extensive Monte Carlo simulations of bosons in a disordered medium. We report results for both short-range and long-range Coulomb interactions for several different points in parameter space. In all cases we observe a transition from a superconducting phase to an insulating Bose glass phase. {}From finite-size scaling of our Monte Carlo data we determine the universal conductivity $σ^*$ and the critical exponents at the transition. The result $σ^* = (0.55 \pm 0.06) (2e)^2/h$ for bosons with long-range Coulomb interaction is roughly consistent with experiments reported so far. We also find $σ^* = (0.14 \pm 0.03) (2e)^2/h$ for bosons with short-range interactions.