Tunneling conductance through normal metal - superconductor junctions: effects of Rashba spin orbit coupling and magnetic field

Abstract

In a system consisting of a metal-(s-wave) superconductor junction, we study the conductance characteristics in presence of Rashba spin orbit coupling (RSOC) and an external magnetic field applied along the plane of the sample. With a selective inclusion of the Rashba coupling either in the metallic or in both we note that there is a distinct effect with regard to the magnitude of the Andreev peak that occurs at a biasing voltage lower than the superconducting gap energy. The height of the peak is sensitive to the RSOC (increases with increase in RSOC) for RSOC to be present only in the metallic region, (same is true when RSOC is present throughout the junction), while the peak height is fairly independent when RSOC is solely present in the superconducting region. The in-plane magnetic field has very interesting effects which show up in the form of having a conductance peak at zero bias, thereby making it possible to realize a Majorana bound state.