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QUANTUM PHASE TRANSITIONS

Emergent inhomogeneity
Experiments with superconductor–graphene hybrids, a novel platform to study quantum phase transitions, suggest
that in the proximity of the critical point between superconducting and insulating phases, inhomogeneity emerges
at large scales even in apparently uniform disordered systems.

Lev B. Ioffe and Michael E. Gershenson

A
ristotle said “The whole is more
than the sum of its parts”. Strong
emergence is one of the most
fascinating phenomena in nature: large
systems often demonstrate new qualities
that cannot be reduced to the properties
of smaller sub-systems1. Phase transitions
provide an example of strong emergence
in physics. Our understanding of classical
phase transitions is almost complete. In
contrast, quantum phase transitions, in
which quantum fluctuations destroy the
long-range order, pose many challenging
questions, especially if they occur in
disordered systems. One of the examples
of actively investigated quantum phase
transitions in solid-state systems is provided
by the superconductor–insulator transitions
(SITs) driven by the localization of Cooper
pairs2,3. These transitions occur in systems
in which the Cooper pairs on both sides of
the SIT are decoupled from other degrees
of freedom in their ‘environment’ (for
example, normal electrons within the same
superconductor). Without such decoupling,
interactions with the environment can
destroy quantum coherence and make the
transition essentially classical4.
Now, writing in Nature Materials, Allain
and co-workers5 report on the realization
of a novel platform to study SITs in systems
decoupled from the environment. The system
they studied is a large array of metallic
grains deposited on top of a graphene layer.
At low enough temperature the metallic
experiments by Bollinger and colleagues
on observation of the electric-field-driven
SIT in epitaxial films of La2−xSrxCuO4;
ref. 8). Things are simpler in graphene,
as the electron density can be tuned
relatively easily.
The electric field is possibly the most
advantageous parameter that can be
used to control the proximity to the
critical point at which superconductivity
disappears. For example, the magnetic
field, a popular tool used to induce the
SIT in disordered superconducting films,
can produce undesirable side effects by
destroying Cooper pairs and generating
normal electrons. The magnetic field may
also affect the SIT by inducing a glassy state6.
All these complications are absent if an
electric field is used.
The experiments5 show that the
emergence of superconductivity in
metal–graphene hybrids is associated
with the emergence of inhomogeneity
100
Order parameter
at macroscopic scales (on the order
of millimetres). The signature of this
inhomogeneity is an anomalously low
critical current in the superconducting
state, a factor of 10–4 to 10–3 lower than that
expected for a uniform system. The ultralow
supercurrent density indicates the formation
of a very dilute network of superconducting
paths approaching the critical point. Similar
results have recently been observed for
arrays of Josephson junctions tuned to
the SIT by magnetic field9. The formation
of this percolation network may also
be responsible for the observation of
complicated temperature dependences
in the superconductor–graphene hybrids
near the SIT5.
The most likely cause for the
inhomogeneous superconductivity is
disorder. In the superconductor–graphene
hybrids, similar to Josephson arrays,
the disorder is due to random electric
potentials of superconducting islands

grains are superconducting. By proximity, 50

they induce local superconductivity in 10–3
(a.u.)

graphene, and, under appropriate conditions,

coherence can be established between 10–6
these superconducting ‘puddles’ resulting
in a global superconducting state6,7. In 50 25
this case, decoupling is due to a fortunate
combination of a low density of normal
electrons in graphene and the gap in their 25
spectrum induced by the proximity effect.
The formation or destruction of such an
extended superconducting state is controlled 0
by a voltage applied to the gate electrode that
changes the density of electrons in graphene.
In conventional metals, huge electric fields Figure 1 | The superconducting order parameter computed for a 50 × 50 array of identical superconducting
are required to strongly modify the electron grains with Josephson coupling close to the SIT. The emergent macroscopic disorder is due to random
density (see for example, the tour-de-force offset charges on the grains.

NATURE MATERIALS | VOL 11 | JULY 2012 | www.nature.com/naturematerials 567

© 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

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induced by uncontrollable charges in their
environment (for example, fluctuating
local charges in oxides formed on metallic
surfaces). The ubiquitous nature of this
disorder implies that these systems are
intrinsically inhomogeneous. Indeed,
there is a growing body of evidence that
the emergent inhomogeneity is a generic
feature of quantum phase transitions in
nominally uniform disordered systems.
In the vicinity of the SIT, strong scattering
of local parameters has been observed in
InO (refs 10,11) and TiN (ref. 12) films
and in Josephson junction arrays9. On the
theoretical side, strong inhomogeneity
appears in the exactly solvable models
of quantum phase transitions in one
dimension13 and in the qualitative treatment
of higher-dimensional problems11. As an
illustration of an exponentially strong
spatial inhomogeneity, we plot in Fig. 1
the map of the superconducting order
parameter expected for an array of identical
superconducting grains with random offset
charges. The order parameter varies by
STEM-CELL DIFFERENTIATION
Anchoring cell-fate cues
The spreading and differentiation of stem cells depends on the stiffness of the extracellular matrix. Now,
experiments on human epidermal and mesenchymal stem cells cultured on substrates with covalently attached
collagen fibres show that the cells sense and respond to the anchoring of the collagen fibres to the substrate.
Ovijit Chaudhuri and David J. Mooney
E
lucidation of the cues that control
fate decisions of stem cells — a focus
of substantial effort over the past
decade — is critical in the understanding
of normal development and repair, and
can be utilized in tissue engineering and
regeneration applications that require stem
cells to be directed towards specific cell
fates. In fact, both biochemical and physical
cues in the natural extracellular matrix
(ECM) — soft biopolymer scaffolds with
highly heterogeneous composition and
organization — are known to play important
roles in directing the differentiation of
mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs; sometimes
also referred to as marrow stromal cells). In
particular, the stiffness of the ECM has been
shown to direct the differentiation of MSCs
when the cells are adhered to substrates1,2 or
encapsulated in a matrix 3–5. Furthermore,
geometric features, such as cell shape and the
area of adhesive substrates, can also control
fate decisions6. However, how cells sense the
mechanical and geometrical properties of the
568 NATURE MATERIALS | VOL 11 | JULY 2012 | www.nature.com/naturematerials
6–7 orders of magnitude between ‘peaks’
and ‘valleys’.
Better understanding of the quantum
phase transitions in disordered systems
requires correlated experimental and
theoretical efforts. On the experimental
side, one might expect to observe highly
unusual nonlinear effects near the critical
point. For SITs, this translates into the
current–voltage characteristics that reflect
rearrangement of the current paths with an
increase of current. Similarly, the microwave
response of these systems might also be
anomalous because the dominant current
paths are frequency-dependent. From the
theoretical point of view, the systems that
demonstrate the SIT driven by Cooper-pair
localization offer a playground for the study
of the many-body localization14, the phase
transition that leads to the formation of a
many-body insulating state in which neither
charge nor energy transport is possible
and quantum coherence is fully preserved.
We envisage a rapid development of this
field in the near future. ❐ Published online: 20 May 2012
substrate has remained elusive. Writing in
Nature Materials, Trappmann and colleagues
push forward the current understanding
at the intersection of stem-cell biology and
biomaterials by showing that stem-cell
spreading and differentiation are influenced
by how ECM molecules are tethered
to a substrate7.
The researchers examined the
differentiation of MSCs and human
epidermal stem cells on hydrogel
substrates made of synthetic polymers —
polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and
polyacrylamide (PAM) — coated with
collagen. For this, they varied the stiffness of
PDMS from 0.1 kPa to 2.3 MPa by altering
the ratio of base polymer and crosslinker,
and varied that of PAM in the 0.5–740 kPa
range by modulating both the monomer
concentration and the monomer-to-
crosslinker ratio. They found that MSCs
differentiate into bone cells — as indicated
by the marker alkaline phosphatase — on
PAM substrates of high stiffness and on all
© 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved
Lev B. Ioffe and Michael E. Gershenson
are in the Department of Physics and
Astronomy, Rutgers University, Piscataway,
New Jersey 08854, USA.
e-mail: gersh@physics.rutgers.edu
References
1. Anderson, P. W. Science 177, 393–396 (1972).
2. Efetov, K. B. Sov. Phys. JETP 51, 1015–1022 (1980).
3. Fisher, M. P. A. Phys. Rev. Lett. 65, 923–926 (1990).
4. Maekawa, S. & Fukuyama, H. J. Phys. Soc. Jpn
51, 1380–1385 (1982).
5. Allain, A., Han, Z. & Bouchiat, V. Nature Mater.
11, 590–594 (2012).
6. Feigel’man, M. V., Skvortsov, M. A. & Tikhonov, K. S.
JETP Lett. 88, 747–751 (2008).
7. Kessler, B. M., Girit, C. O., Zettl, A. & Bouchiat, V.
Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 047001 (2010).
8. Bollinger, A. T. et al. Nature 472, 458–460 (2011).
9. Paramanandam, J. et al. Preprint at http://arXiv.org/
abs/1112.6377 (2011).
10. Kowal, D. & Ovaduyahu, Z. Physica C 468, 322–325 (2008).
11. Sacepe, B. et al. Nature Phys. 7, 239–244 (2011).
12. Kalok, D. et al. Preprint at http://arXiv.org/
abs/1004.5153 (2010).
13. Fisher, D. S. Phys. Rev. Lett. 69, 534–537 (1992).
14. Basko, D. M., Aleiner, I. L. & Altshuler, B. L. Ann. Phys.
321, 1126–1205 (2006).
PDMS substrates, but that epidermal cells
differentiated only on soft PAM substrates
(according to the expression of the marker
involucrin). The researchers also observed
that on soft PAM substrates the pore size
decreased (from 15 nm to 6 nm) with
increased stiffness, suggesting that alterations
in collagen tethering caused by the varying
pore size may impact the substrate’s influence
on differentiation. To verify this, Trappmann
and colleagues directly varied collagen
tethering by altering the crosslinking density
of collagen to the PAM substrates, and by
coupling collagen to either gold-coated
macroporous gels with different pore sizes
or to gold nanoparticles spaced either 60 nm
or 190 nm apart. Although the overall range
of distances between the anchored collagen
tethers varied in each of these conditions, in
all cases the researchers observed that the
distance between anchoring points altered
both cell shape and cell fate for epidermal
cells, and that shorter anchoring distances
led to enhanced cell spreading.