Ultracold bose gase systems can perform quantum simulations of high temperature superconductors in certain parameter regimes. Specifically, 2D bose gases at low temperatures exhibit a superfluid to thermal gas phase transition analogous to the superconductor to insulator transition in certain superconductors. The unbinding of thermally activated vortex pairs drives this phase transition, and disorder is expected to affect vortex motion in this system. In addition, disorder itself can drive phase transitions in superconductors.

We have designed and built a system which produces two 2D ultracold Bose gas systems separated by a few microns. In addition, we have also produced a disordered speckled laser intensity pattern with a grain size of ~1 μm, small enough to provide a disordered potential for the two systems. We have observed the superfluid phase transition with and without the presence of disorder. The coherence of the system, which is related to superfluidity, is strongly reduced by the presence of disorder, even at small disorder strength, but the effect of the disorder on observed vortices in the system is less clear.