Daily Overview: Today’s highlight focuses on the bosonic phase revealed by the superconductor-insulator transition in infinite-layer nickelate superconductors. By constructing a spatially periodic network structure to regulate the phase coherence of Cooper pairs, this study achieves a superconductor-insulator transition in samarium nickel oxide thin films and observes magnetoresistance oscillations with a period of h/2e, directly confirming the existence of 2e Cooper pairs in nickel oxides. Experiments indicate that the transition is primarily driven by enhanced superconducting fluctuations, and that Cooper pairs dominate charge transport throughout the transition process. The discovery of two anomalous metallic states—observed under finite and zero magnetic fields, respectively—can both be characterized by bosonic excitations, suggesting a key role of vortex dynamics in the ground state. This work establishes nickel oxides as a platform for studying the rich bosonic phases arising from the modulation of Cooper-pair phase coherence. arXiv submission processing window: 2026-02-23 00:00 to 2026-02-23 00:00 UTC.

1. Bosonic phases across the superconductor-insulator transition in infinite-layer samarium nickelate

  • Relevance Score: 4.9191
  • Authors: Menghan Liao, Heng Wang, Mingwei Yang, Chuanwu Cao, Jiayin Tang, Wenjing Xu, Xianfeng Wu, Guangdi Zhou, Haoliang Huang, Kaiwei Chen, Yuying Zhu, Peng Deng, Jianhao Chen, Zhuoyu Chen, Danfeng Li, Kai Chang, Qi-Kun Xue
  • Affiliations: Tsinghua University, Hefei National Laboratory, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peking University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Southern University of Science and Technology, Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences, Quantum Science Center of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area
  • Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.19497
  • Paper page: Bosonic phases across the superconductor-insulator transition in infinite-layer samarium nickelate

Summary: This study realized a superconductor-insulator transition by fabricating infinite-layer samarium nickel oxide superconducting thin films into a spatially periodic network structure, thereby modulating the phase coherence of Cooper pairs. The observation of magnetoresistance oscillations with a period of h/2e in the experiments directly confirmed the existence of 2e Cooper pairs in nickel oxides. The transition was primarily driven by enhanced superconducting fluctuations, with Cooper pairs participating in charge transport throughout the entire transition process. Two anomalous metallic states were also identified: one emerging under finite magnetic fields and the other appearing even at zero magnetic field; both states could be characterized by bosonic excitations, suggesting the dynamic role of vortices in the ground state. This work establishes nickel oxides as a key platform for studying the rich bosonic phases arising from the modulation of Cooper pair phase coherence.