An international team of scientists published an article First-order quantum breakdown of superconductivity in an amorphous superconductorin the journal Nature Physics. Mikhail Feigel’man from Jožef Stefan Institute (Dept. of Complex Matter F7) and the CENN Nanocenter, in collaboration with researchers from the Neel Institute (CNRS Grenoble) and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, provided a groundbreaking framework for understanding of unexpected experimental demonstration of sharp disappearance of superconductivity of thin films at ultra-low temperatures, upon increase of their normal-state resistance, that is in sharp contrast with standard paradigm of continuous (second-order) superconducting-insulator transitions existing for more than three decade. The first-order nature of this transition is understood in terms of energy competition between two low-temperature states of matter: the superconducting condensate of electron pairs on one hand, and the insulator made out of bound electron pairs with Coulomb repulsion between them, on another hand.