Triplet superconductivity and magnetoelectric effect near thes-wave-superconductor– normal-metal interface caused by local breaking of mirror symmetry

Abstract

An interface spin-orbit coupling induced by the absence of the left-right symmetry on the junction of two different conductors is argued to exist. The coupling is due to contact charge exchange between conductors with different work functions. The effect of the coupling on superconductivity near the interface of a conventional superconductor and a normal metal is studied in Gor'kov formulation by making use of the exact Green's functions of the interface scattering problem. The triplet component of the Cooper pair wave function and the spin polarization of the carriers in the state with supercurrent parallel to the interface are predicted to exist in a vicinity of the junction of the order of the coherence length.