Effects of Disorder on Coexistence and Competition between Superconducting and Insulating States

TL;DR

This paper investigates how nonmagnetic impurities influence the competition and coexistence of superconducting and insulating states, revealing that disorder can enable their coexistence in uniform materials where they are typically mutually exclusive.

Contribution

It demonstrates that disorder can induce coexistence of superconducting and insulating states, a phenomenon absent in clean systems, advancing understanding of impurity effects in correlated materials.

Findings

Disorder enables coexistence of superconducting and insulating states.

Impurities can alter the phase competition in correlated electron systems.

Coexistence occurs even when states are mutually exclusive in clean materials.

Abstract

We study effects of nonmagnetic impurities on the competition between the superconducting and electron-hole pairing. We show that disorder can result in coexistence of these two types of ordering in a uniform state, even when in clean materials they are mutually exclusive.