Field-induced boson insulating states in a 2D superconducting electron gas with strong spin–orbit scatterings

Abstract The phenomenon of field-induced superconductor-to-insulator transitions observed experimentally in electron-doped SrTiO 3 /LaAlO 3 interfaces, analyzed recently by menas of 2D superconducting fluctuations theory, is revisited with new insights associating it with the appearnace at low temperatures of field-induced boson insulating states. Within the framework of the time-dependent Ginzburg–Landau functional approach, we pinpoint the origin of these states in field-induced extreme softening of fluctuation modes over a large region in momentum space, upon diminishing temperature, which drives Cooper-pair fluctuations to condense into mesoscopic puddles in real space. Dynamical quantum tunneling of Cooper-pair fluctuations out of these puddles, introduced within a phenomenological approach, which break into mobile single-electron states, contains the high-field resistance onset predicted by the exclusive boson theory.