No Arabic abstract
Opposite to the common idea of a magnetic order requirement to obtain spin current propagation, materials with no magnetic ordering have also been revealed to be efficient spin conductors. In this work, we investigate the spin current injection at the interface between a magnetic insulator and a superconductor. We are mainly interested in the paramagnetic insulator/superconductor interface however, our model also describes the ferromagnetic phase. We used the Schwinger bosonic formalism to describe the magnetic insulator and standard BCS theory was applied to treat the superconductor layer. In the normal-metal limit, our results are in agreement with the expected ones. For example, we found the correct spin current behavior $Iapprox T^{3/2}$ at low temperature. In addition, our model shows a pronounced peak in the spin current injection at temperatures close to the superconductor transition temperature due to the superconducting quasiparticle coherence. The role of magnetic fields in the spin current injection is also investigated.
Superconductivity and magnetism are generally incompatible because of the opposing requirement on electron spin alignment. When combined, they produce a multitude of fascinating phenomena, including unconventional superconductivity and topological superconductivity. The emergence of two-dimensional (2D)layered superconducting and magnetic materials that can form nanoscale junctions with atomically sharp interfaces presents an ideal laboratory to explore new phenomena from coexisting superconductivity and magnetic ordering. Here we report tunneling spectroscopy under an in-plane magnetic field of superconductor-ferromagnet-superconductor (S/F/S) tunnel junctions that are made of 2D Ising superconductor NbSe2 and ferromagnetic insulator CrBr3. We observe nearly 100% tunneling anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR), that is, difference in tunnel resistance upon changing magnetization direction from out-of-plane to inplane. The giant tunneling AMR is induced by superconductivity, particularly, a result of interfacial magnetic exchange coupling and spin-dependent quasiparticle scattering. We also observe an intriguing magnetic hysteresis effect in superconducting gap energy and quasiparticle scattering rate with a critical temperature that is 2 K below the superconducting transition temperature. Our study paves the path for exploring superconducting spintronic and unconventional superconductivity in van der Waals heterostructures.
A ferromagnetic insulator (FI) attached to a conventional superconductor (S) changes drastically the properties of the latter. Specifically, the exchange field at the FI/S interface leads to a splitting of the superconducting density of states. If S is a superconducting film, thinner than the superconducting coherence length, the modification of the density of states occurs over the whole sample. The co-existence of the exchange splitting and superconducting correlations in S/FI structures leads to striking transport phenomena that are of interest for applications in thermoelectricity, superconducting spintronics and radiation sensors. Here we review the most recent progress in understanding the transport properties of FI/S structures by presenting a complete theoretical framework based on the quasiclassical kinetic equations. We discuss the coupling between the electronic degrees of freedom, charge, spin and energy, under non-equilibrium conditions and its manifestation in thermoelectricity and spin-dependent transport.
Hybrid normal metal - insulator - superconductor microstructures suitable for studying an interference of electrons were fabricated. The structures consist of a superconducting loop connected to a normal metal electrode through a tunnel barrier . An optical interferometer with a beam splitter can be considered as a classical analogue for this system. All measurements were performed at temperatures well below 1 K. The interference can be observed as periodic oscillations of the tunnel current (voltage) through the junction at fixed bias voltage (current) as a function of a perpendicular magnetic field. The magnitude of the oscillations depends on the bias point. It reaches a maximum at energy $eV$ which is close to the superconducting gap and decreases with an increase of temperature. Surprisingly, the period of the oscillations in units of magnetic flux $Delta Phi$ is equal neither to $h/e$ nor to $h/2e$, but significantly exceeds these values for larger loop circumferences. The origin of the phenomena is not clear.
We propose a mechanism whereby spin supercurrents can be manipulated in superconductor/ferromagnet proximity systems via nonequilibrium spin injection. We find that if a spin supercurrent exists in equilibrium, a nonequilibrium spin accumulation will exert a torque on the spins transported by this current. This interaction causes a new spin supercurrent contribution to manifest out of equilibrium, which is proportional to and polarized perpendicularly to both the injected spins and equilibrium spin current. This is interesting for several reasons: as a fundamental physical effect; due to possible applications as a way to control spin supercurrents; and timeliness in light of recent experiments on spin injection in proximitized superconductors.
We theoretically investigate domain wall motion in an antiferromagnetic insulator layer caused by thermally generated spin currents in an adjacent spin-split superconductor layer. An uncompensated antiferromagnet interface enables the two crucial ingredients underlying the mechanism - spin splitting in the superconductor and absorption of spin currents by the antiferromagnet. Treating the superconductor using the quasiclassical theory and the antiferromagnet via Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert description, we find domain wall propagation along the thermal gradient with relatively large velocities $sim 100$ m/s. Our proposal exploits the giant thermal response of spin-split superconductors in achieving large spin torques towards driving domain wall and other spin textures in antiferromagnets.