No Arabic abstract
We study the Josephson current through a ferromagnetic trilayer, both in the diffusive and clean limits. For colinear (parallel or antiparallel) magnetizations in the layers, the Josephson current is small due to short range proximity effect in superconductor/ferromagnet structures. For non colinear magnetizations, we determine the conditions for the Josephson current to be dominated by another contribution originating from long range triplet proximity effect.
Charge and spin transport in a junction involving two triplet superconductors and a ferromagnetic barrier are studied. We use Bogoliubov-de Gennes wavefunctions to construct the Greens function, from which we obtain the Josephson currents in terms of the Andreev reflection coefficients. We focus on the consequences of a finite barrier width for the occurrence of 0-pi transitions and for the spin currents, and examine the appropriateness of the common delta-function approximation for the tunneling region.
The order parameter of superconducting pairs penetrating an inhomogeneous magnetic material can acquire a long range triplet component (LRTC) with non-zero spin projection. This state has been predicted and generated recently in proximity systems and Josephson junctions. We show using an analytically derived domain wall of an exchange spring how the LRTC emerges and can be tuned with the twisting of the magnetization. We also introduce a new kind of Josephson current reversal, the triplet $0-pi$ transition, that can be observed in one and the same system either by tuning the domain wall or by varying temperature.
In the past year, several groups have observed evidence for long-range spin-triplet supercurrent in Josephson junctions containing ferromagnetic (F) materials. In our work, the spin-triplet pair correlations are created by non-collinear magnetizations between a central Co/Ru/Co synthetic antiferromagnet (SAF) and two outer thin F layers. Here we present data showing that the spin-triplet supercurrent is enhanced up to 20 times after our samples are subject to a large in-plane magnetizing field. This surprising result can be explained if the Co/Ru/Co SAF undergoes a spin-flop transition, whereby the two Co layer magnetizations end up perpendicular to the magnetizations of the two thin F layers. Direct experimental evidence for the spin-flop transition comes from scanning electron microscopy with polarization analysis and from spin-polarized neutron reflectometry.
In 2010, several experimental groups obtained compelling evidence for spin-triplet supercurrent in Josephson junctions containing strong ferromagnetic materials. Our own best results were obtained from large-area junctions containing a thick central Co/Ru/Co synthetic antiferromagnet and two thin outer layers made of Ni or PdNi alloy. Because the ferromagnetic layers in our samples are multi-domain, one would expect the sign of the local current-phase relation inside the junctions to vary randomly as a function of lateral position. Here we report measurements of the area dependence of the critical current in several samples, where we find some evidence for those random sign variations. When the samples are magnetized, however, the critical current becomes clearly proportional to the area, indicating that the current-phase relation has the same sign across the entire area of the junctions.
The long-range proximity effect in superconductor/ferromagnet (S/F) hybrid nano-structures is observed if singlet Cooper pairs from the superconductor are converted into triplet pairs which can diffuse into the fer- romagnet over large distances. It is commonly believed that this happens only in the presence of magnetic inhomogeneities. We show that there are other sources of the long-range triplet component (LRTC) of the con- densate and establish general conditions for their occurrence. As a prototypical example we consider first a system where the exchange field and spin-orbit coupling can be treated as time and space components of an effective SU(2) potential. We derive a SU(2) covariant diffusive equation for the condensate and demonstrate that an effective SU(2) electric field is responsible for the long-range proximity effect. Finally, we extend our analysis to a generic ferromagnet and establish a universal condition for the LRTC. Our results open a new avenue in the search for such correlations in S/F structures and make a hitherto unknown connection between the LRTC and Yang-Mills electrostatics.