The disordered Fermi-liquid fixed point and its instabilities

Abstract

The concept of a disordered Fermi-liquid fixed point is introduced and used to understand various properties of disordered metals within a unifying framework. Corrections to scaling near this fixed point give what are commonly called weak-localization effects. Various instabilities of the disordered Fermi-liquid phase are discussed. These include two distinct types of superconducting-to-normal-metal quantum phase transitions. First, the quantum phase transition from a disordered metal to a conventional superconductor in bulk materials is considered. Second, a quantum phase transition in two dimensions from metallic-like behavior to a novel type of disorder induced, spin-triplet, even parity, superconductivity is treated. The paper is concluded with a discussion of the nature of the ground state of two-dimensional, disordered electron systems.