Analogue viscous current flow near the onset of superconductivity

TL;DR

This paper predicts that near the superconducting transition, two-dimensional thin films exhibit spatially inhomogeneous, viscous-like current flow patterns that can be experimentally observed and are tunable with temperature.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of analogue viscous flow in superconducting films near the critical temperature, linking superconductivity to fluid dynamics.

Findings

Predicted viscous vortex flow patterns above T_c in 2D superconductors.

Described a tunable crossover from Ohmic to non-Ohmic transport.

Suggested experimental methods to observe these phenomena.

Abstract

Spatially resolved transport in two-dimensional quantum materials can reveal dynamics which is invisible in conventional bulk transport measurements. We predict striking patterns in spatially inhomogeneous transport just above the critical temperature in two-dimensional superconducting thin films, where electrical current will appear to flow as if it were a viscous fluid obeying the Navier-Stokes equations. Compared to viscous electron fluids in ultrapure metals such as graphene, this analogue viscous vortex fluid can exhibit a far more tunable crossover, as a function of temperature, from Ohmic to non-Ohmic transport, with the latter arising on increasingly large length scales close to the critical temperature. Experiments using nitrogen vacancy center magnetometry, or transport through patterned thin films, could reveal this analogue viscous flow in a wide variety of materials.