Spin-polarized Supercurrents Research Articles

In-plane spin-polarized supercurrent on the topological Josephson junction

In-plane spin-polarized supercurrent on the topological Josephson junction

Controllable spin-triplet superconductivity states and enhanced non-dissipation spin-polarized supercurrents in YBa2Cu3O7/La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 interfaces

The interfaces between superconductors and ferromagnets serve as a nurturing environment for spin-triplet superconducting pairs, where their spins align with the ferromagnetic moments, enabling the conduction of non-dissipative spin-polarized supercurrents that hold immense potential for spintronics applications and scientific advancements. In this study, we explore the spin-triplet superconductivity and the non-dissipative spin-polarized current in the YBa2Cu3O7(YBCO)/La0.67Sr0.33MnO3(LSMO) bilayers with X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD). The induced Cu moment at the interfaces exhibits three distinct alignment states: antiparallel, perpendicular, and parallel to the net moment of the LSMO ferromagnetic layer. Remarkably, the in-plane superconducting critical current experiences a sudden enhancement and displays a slower decaying trend to the applied magnetic field when the Cu-moment undergoes a transition from the antiparallel to the perpendicular state with respect to the LSMO magnetization. These findings shed light on the manipulation of induced Cu moments at interfaces, providing valuable insights for controlling spin-triplet states and enhancing non-dissipative spin-polarized supercurrents.

The unusual distribution of spin-triplet supercurrents in disk-shaped Josephson junctions

The phenomenon of s-wave spin-triplet Cooper pairs induced in ferromagnetic metals has been researched now for more than a decade, and its main aspects are well understood. Crucial in converting s-wave singlet pairs in the superconductor to s-wave triplets in the ferromagnet is the engineering of well-defined magnetic inhomogeneity (the ‘generator’) at the interface with the superconductor. Vertical layer stacks are typically used as such, where two separate thin ferromagnetic layers with homogeneous but non-collinear magnetizations, provide the inhomogeneity. Alternatively, magnetic textures, like ferromagnetic domain walls and vortices, are possible triplet generators, although they are far less studied. In this paper, we review our experiments on lateral disk-shaped Josephson junctions where a ferromagnetic bottom layer provides a weak link with a vortex magnetization imposed by the shape of the disk. We present three different junction configurations, exhibiting their own generator mechanism. In the first, we utilize the non-collinearity with a second ferromagnetic layer to produce the triplet correlations. The second configuration consists of only the bottom ferromagnet and the superconducting contacts; it relies on the vortex magnetization itself to generate the spin-polarized supercurrents. In the third case, we exploit an intrinsic generator by combining a conventional superconductor (NbTi) and a half-metallic ferromagnetic oxide (La0.7Sr0.3MnO3). We find strong supercurrents in all cases. A particularly interesting finding is that the supercurrents are strongly confined at the rims of the device, independent of the generating mechanism, but directly related to their triplet nature. What causes these rim currents remains an open question.

Chiral antiferromagnetic Josephson junctions as spin-triplet supercurrent spin valves and d.c. SQUIDs

Spin-triplet supercurrent spin valves are of practical importance for the realization of superconducting spintronic logic circuits. In ferromagnetic Josephson junctions, the magnetic-field-controlled non-collinearity between the spin-mixer and spin-rotator magnetizations switches the spin-polarized triplet supercurrents on and off. Here we report an antiferromagnetic equivalent of such spin-triplet supercurrent spin valves in chiral antiferromagnetic Josephson junctions as well as a direct-current superconducting quantum interference device. We employ the topological chiral antiferromagnet Mn3Ge, in which the Berry curvature of the band structure produces fictitious magnetic fields, and the non-collinear atomic-scale spin arrangement accommodates triplet Cooper pairing over long distances (>150 nm). We theoretically verify the observed supercurrent spin-valve behaviours under a small magnetic field of <2 mT for current-biased junctions and the direct-current superconducting quantum interference device functionality. Our calculations reproduce the observed hysteretic field interference of the Josephson critical current and link these to the magnetic-field-modulated antiferromagnetic texture that alters the Berry curvature. Our work employs band topology to control the pairing amplitude of spin-triplet Cooper pairs in a single chiral antiferromagnet.

Spin-orbit coupling suppression and singlet-state blocking of spin-triplet Cooper pairs.

An inhomogeneous magnetic exchange field at a superconductor/ferromagnet interface converts spin-singlet Cooper pairs to a spin-polarized triplet state. Although the decay envelope of triplet pairs within ferromagnetic materials is well studied, little is known about their decay in nonmagnetic metals and superconductors and, in particular, in the presence of spin-orbit coupling (SOC). Here, we investigate devices in which singlet and triplet supercurrents propagate into the s-wave superconductor Nb. In the normal state of Nb, triplet supercurrents decay over a distance of 5 nm, which is an order of magnitude smaller than the decay of spin-singlet pairs due to the SOC. In the superconducting state of Nb, triplet supercurrents are not able to couple with the singlet wave function and are thus blocked by the absence of available equilibrium states in the singlet gap. The results offer insight into the dynamics between s-wave singlet and s-wave triplet states.

Spin-polarized triplet supercurrent in Josephson junctions with perpendicular ferromagnetic layers

Josephson junctions containing three ferromagnetic layers with non-collinear magnetizations between adjacent layers carry spin-triplet supercurrent under certain conditions. The signature of the spin-triplet supercurrent is a relatively slow decay of the maximum supercurrent as a function of the thickness of the middle ferromagnetic layer. In this work we focus on junctions where the middle magnetic layer is a [Co/Pd]$_N$ multilayer with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA), while the outer two layers have in-plane anisotropy. We compare junctions where the middle PMA layer is or is not configured as a synthetic antiferromagnet (PMA-SAF). We find that the supercurrent decays much more rapidly with increasing the number $N$ of [Co/Pd] bilayers in the PMA-SAF junctions compared to the PMA junctions. Similar behavior is observed in junctions containing [Co/Ni]$_N$ PMA multilayers. We model that behavior by assuming that each Co/Pd or Co/Ni interface acts as a partial spin filter, so that the spin-triplet supercurrent in the PMA junctions becomes more strongly spin-polarized as $N$ increases while the supercurrent in the PMA-SAF junctions is suppressed with increasing $N$. We also address a question raised in a previous work regarding how much spin-singlet supercurrent is transmitted through our nominally spin-triplet junctions. We do that by comparing spin-triplet junctions with similar junctions where the order of the magnetic layers has been shuffled. The results of this work are expected to be helpful in designing spin-triplet Josephson junctions for use in cryogenic memory.

On-demand thermoelectric generation of equal-spin Cooper pairs

Superconducting spintronics is based on the creation of spin-triplet Cooper pairs in ferromagnet-superconductor (F-S) hybrid junctions. Previous proposals to manipulate spin-polarized supercurrents on-demand typically require the ability to carefully control magnetic materials. We, instead, propose a quantum heat engine that generates equal-spin Cooper pairs and drives supercurrents on-demand without manipulating magnetic components. We consider a S-F-S junction, connecting two leads at different temperatures, on top of the helical edge of a two-dimensional topological insulator. Heat and charge currents generated by the thermal bias are caused by different transport processes, where electron cotunneling is responsible for the heat flow to the cold lead and, strikingly, only crossed Andreev reflections contribute to the charge current. Such a purely nonlocal Andreev thermoelectric effect injects spin-polarized Cooper pairs at the superconductors, generating a supercurrent that can be switched on/off by tuning their relative phase. We further demonstrate that signatures of spin-triplet pairing are facilitated by rather low fluctuations of the thermoelectric current for temperature gradients smaller than the superconducting gap.

Long-ranged triplet supercurrent in a single in-plane ferromagnet with spin-orbit coupled contacts to superconductors

By converting conventional spin-singlet Cooper pairs to polarized spin-triplet pairs, it is possible to sustain long-ranged spin-polarized supercurrents flowing through strong ferromagnets. Obtaining such a conversion via spin-orbit interactions, rather than magnetic inhomogeneities, has recently been explored in the literature. A challenging aspect with regard to experimental detection has been that in order for Rashba spin-orbit interactions, present, e.g., at interfaces due to inversion symmetry breaking, to generate such long-ranged supercurrents, an out-of-plane component of the magnetization is required. This limits the choice of materials and can induce vortices in the superconducting region complicating the interpretation of measurements. Therefore, it would be desirable to identify a way in which Rashba spin-orbit interactions can induce long-ranged supercurrents for purely in-plane rotations of the magnetization. Here, we show that this is possible in a lateral Josephson junction where two superconducting electrodes are placed in contact with a ferromagnetic film via two thin, heavy normal metals. The magnitude of the supercurrent in such a setup becomes tunable by the in-plane magnetization angle when using only a single magnetic layer. These results could provide a new and simpler way to generate controllable spin-polarized supercurrents than previous experiments which utilized complicated magnetically textured Josephson junctions.

Bias current dependence of superconducting transition temperature in superconducting spin-valve nanowires

Competition between superconducting and ferromagnetic ordering at interfaces between ferromagnets (F) and superconductors (S) gives rise to several proximity effects such as odd-triplet superconductivity and spin-polarized supercurrents. A prominent example of an S/F proximity effect is the spin switch effect (SSE) observed in S/F/N/F superconducting spin-valve multilayers, in which the superconducting transition temperature T$_c$ is controlled by the angle $\phi$ between the magnetic moments of the F layers separated by a nonmagnetic metallic spacer N. Here we present an experimental study of SSE in Nb/Co/Cu/Co/CoO$_x$ nanowires measured as a function of bias current flowing in the plane of the layers. These measurements reveal an unexpected dependence of T$_c(\phi)$ on the bias current: T$_c(\pi)$--T$_c(0)$ changes sign with increasing current bias. We attribute the origin of this bias dependence of the SSE to a spin Hall current flowing perpendicular to the plane of the multilayer, which suppresses T$_c$ of the multilayer. The bias dependence of SSE can be important for hybrid F/S devices such as those used in cryogenic memory for superconducting computers as device dimensions are scaled down to the nanometer length scale.

Anomalous anisotropic behaviour of spin-triplet proximity effect in Au/SrRuO3/Sr2RuO4 junctions

Spin-polarized supercurrents can be generated with magnetic inhomogeneity at a ferromagnet/spin-singlet-superconductor interface. In such systems, complex magnetic inhomogeneity makes it difficult to functionalise the spin-polarized supercurrents. However, spin-polarized supercurrents in ferromagnet/spin-triplet-superconductor junctions can be controlled by the angle between magnetization and spin of Copper pairs (d-vector), that can effectively be utilized in developing of a field of research known as superconducting spintronics. Recently, we found induction of spin-triplet correlation into a ferromagnet SrRuO3 epitaxially deposited on a spin-triplet superconductor Sr2RuO4, without any electronic spin-flip scattering. Here, we present systematic magnetic field dependence of the proximity effect in Au/SrRuO3/Sr2RuO4 junctions. It is found that induced triplet correlations exhibit strongly anisotropic field response. Such behaviour is attributed to the rotation of the d-vector of Sr2RuO4. This anisotropic behaviour is in contrast with the vortex dynamic. Our results will stimulate study of interaction between ferromagnetism and unconventional superconductivity.

Direct and inverse superspin Hall effect in two-dimensional systems: Electrical detection of spin supercurrents

A useful experimental signature of the ordinary spin Hall effect is the spin accumulation it produces at the sample edges. The superspin Hall current [Phys. Rev. B 96, 094512 (2017)] is a transverse equilibrium spin current which is induced by a charge supercurrent. We study the superspin Hall current numerically, and find that it does not give rise to a similar edge magnetization. We also predict and numerically confirm the existence of the inverse superspin Hall effect, which produces a transverse charge supercurrent in response to an equilibrium spin current. We verify the existence of the inverse superspin Hall effect both for a spin-polarized charge supercurrent and an exchange spin current, and propose that a $\phi_0$ junction produced by the inverse superspin Hall effect can be used to directly and electrically measure the spin polarization of a charge supercurrent. This provides a possible way to solve the long-standing problem of how to directly detect the spin-polarization of supercurrents carried by triplet Cooper pairs.

Effect of Meissner Screening and Trapped Magnetic Flux on Magnetization Dynamics in Thick Nb/Ni80Fe20/Nb Trilayers

We investigate the influence of Meissner screening and trapped magnetic flux on magnetization dynamics for a Ni80Fe20 film sandwiched between two thick Nb layers (100 nm) using broadband (5-20 GHz) ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) spectroscopy. Below the superconducting transition Tc of Nb, significant zero-frequency line broadening (5-6 mT) and DC resonance field shift (50 mT) to a low field are both observed if the Nb thickness is comparable to the London penetration depth of Nb films (>= 100 nm). We attribute the observed peculiar behaviors to the increased incoherent precession near the Ni80Fe20/Nb interface and the effectively focused magnetic flux in the middle Ni80Fe20 caused by strong Meissner screening and (defect-)trapped flux of the thick adjacent Nb layers. This explanation is supported by static magnetic properties of the samples and comparison with FMR data on thick Nb/Ni80Fe20 bilayers. Great care should therefore be taken in the analysis of FMR response in ferromagnetic Josephson structures with thick superconductors, a fundamental property for high-frequency device applications of spin-polarized supercurrents.

Exchange-field enhancement of superconducting spin pumping

A recent ferromagnetic resonance study [Jeon et al., Nat. Mater. 17, 499 (2018)] has reported that spin pumping into a singlet superconductor (Nb) can be greatly enhanced over the normal state when the Nb is coupled to a large spin-orbit-coupling (SOC) spin sink such as Pt. This behavior has been explained in terms of the generation of spin-polarized triplet supercurrents via SOC at the Nb/Pt interface, acting in conjunction with a nonlocally induced magnetic exchange field. Here we report the effect of adding a ferromagnet (Fe) to act as an internal source of an additional exchange field to the adjacent Pt spin sink. This dramatically enhances the spin pumping efficiency in the superconducting state compared with either Pt and Fe separately, demonstrating the critical role of the exchange field in generating superconducting spin currents in the Nb.

Mesoscopic superconductivity and high spin polarization coexisting at metallic point contacts on Weyl semimetal TaAs

A Weyl semimetal is a topologically non-trivial phase of matter that hosts mass-less Weyl fermions, the particles that remained elusive for more than 80 years since their theoretical discovery. The Weyl semimetals exhibit unique transport properties and remarkably high surface spin polarization. Here we show that a mesoscopic superconducting phase with critical temperature Tc=7 K can be realized by forming metallic point contacts with silver (Ag) on single crystals of TaAs, while neither Ag nor TaAs are superconductors. Andreev reflection spectroscopy of such point contacts reveals a superconducting gap of 1.2 meV that coexists with a high transport spin polarization of 60% indicating a highly spin-polarized supercurrent flowing through the point contacts on TaAs. Therefore, apart from the discovery of a novel mesoscopic superconducting phase, our results also show that the point contacts on Weyl semimetals are potentially important for applications in spintronics.

High-Quality CrO2 Nanowires for Dissipation-less Spintronics

Superconductor-ferromagnet (S-F) hybrids based on half-metallic ferromagnets, such as CrO2, are ideal candidates for superconducting spintronic applications. This is primarily due to the fully spin-polarized nature of CrO2, which produces enhanced long-range triplet proximity effects. However, reliable production of CrO2-based Josephson junctions (JJs) has proved to be extremely challenging because of a poorly controlled interface transparency and an incomplete knowledge of the local magnetization of the CrO2 films. To address these issues, we use a bottom-up approach to grow CrO2 nanowires on prepatterned substrates via chemical-vapor deposition. A comprehensive study of the growth mechanism enables us to reliably synthesize faceted, homogeneous CrO2 wires with a well-defined magnetization state. Combining these high-quality wires with a superconductor produces JJs with a high interface transparency, leading to exceptionally large 100% spin-polarized supercurrents, with critical current densities exceeding 109 Am−2 over distances as long as 600 nm. These CrO2-nanowire-based JJs thus provide a realistic route to creating a scalable device platform for dissipation-less spintronics.Received 29 June 2016DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.6.041012Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasOdd-frequency superconductivityCondensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Spin-polarized supercurrents for spintronics: a review of current progress

During the past 15 years a new field has emerged, which combines superconductivity and spintronics, with the goal to pave a way for new types of devices for applications combining the virtues of both by offering the possibility of long-range spin-polarized supercurrents. Such supercurrents constitute a fruitful basis for the study of fundamental physics as they combine macroscopic quantum coherence with microscopic exchange interactions, spin selectivity, and spin transport. This report follows recent developments in the controlled creation of long-range equal-spin triplet supercurrents in ferromagnets and its contribution to spintronics. The mutual proximity-induced modification of order in superconductor-ferromagnet hybrid structures introduces in a natural way such evasive phenomena as triplet superconductivity, odd-frequency pairing, Fulde–Ferrell–Larkin–Ovchinnikov pairing, long-range equal-spin supercurrents, -Josephson junctions, as well as long-range magnetic proximity effects. All these effects were rather exotic before 2000, when improvements in nanofabrication and materials control allowed for a new quality of hybrid structures. Guided by pioneering theoretical studies, experimental progress evolved rapidly, and since 2010 triplet supercurrents are routinely produced and observed. We have entered a new stage of studying new phases of matter previously out of our reach, and of merging the hitherto disparate fields of superconductivity and spintronics to a new research direction: super-spintronics.

Superconducting spintronics with magnetic domain walls

The recent experimental demonstration of spin-polarized supercurrents offers a venue for establishment of a superconducting analog to conventional spintronics. Whereas domain-wall motion in purely magnetic structures is a well-studied topic, it is not clear how domain-wall dynamics may influence superconductivity and whether some functional property can be harnessed from such a scenario. Here, we demonstrate that domain walls in superconducting systems offer a unique way of controlling the quantum state of the superconductor. Considering both the diffusive and ballistic limits, we show that moving the domain wall to different locations in a Josephson junction will change the quantum ground state from being in a 0 state to a $\ensuremath{\pi}$ state. Remarkably, we also show that domain-wall motion can be used to turn on and off superconductivity: the position of the domain wall determines the critical temperature ${T}_{c}$ and thus whether the system is in a resistive state or not, causing even a quantum phase transition between the dissipationless and normal state at $T=0$. In this way, one achieves dynamical control over the superconducting state within a single sample by utilizing magnetic domain wall motion which has interesting consequences in terms of a domain-wall-controlled superconducting magnetoresistance effect.

Reversible control of spin-polarized supercurrents in ferromagnetic Josephson junctions.

Magnetic inhomogeneity at a superconductor (S)-ferromagnet (F) interface converts spin-singlet Cooper pairs into spin-one triplet pairs. These pairs are immune to the pair-breaking exchange field in F and support a long-range proximity effect. Although recent experiments have confirmed the existence of spin-polarized triplet supercurrents in S-F-S Josephson junctions, reversible control of the supercurrent has been impossible because of the robust preconfigured nature of the inhomogeneity. Here, we use a barrier comprising three F layers whose relative magnetic orientation, and hence the interfacial inhomogeneity, can be controlled by small magnetic fields; we show that this enables full control of the triplet supercurrent and, by using finite element micromagnetic simulations, we can directly relate the experimental data to the theoretical models which provide a general framework to understand the role played by magnetic states in long-range supercurrent modulation.

Spin-polarized Josephson and quasiparticle currents in superconducting spin-filter tunnel junctions

We present a theoretical study of the effect of spin filtering on the Josephson and dissipative quasiparticle currents in a superconducting tunnel junction. By combining the quasiclassical Green's functions and the tunneling Hamiltonian method, we describe the transport properties of a generic junction consisting of two superconducting leads with an effective exchange field $\mathbf{h}$ separated by a spin-filter insulating barrier. We show that in addition to the tunneling of Cooper pairs with total spin projection ${S}_{z}=0$ there is another contribution to the Josephson current due to triplet Cooper pairs with total spin projection ${S}_{z}\ensuremath{\ne}0$. The latter is finite and not affected by the spin-filter effect provided that the fields $\mathbf{h}$ and the magnetization of the barrier are noncollinear. We also determine the quasiparticle current for a symmetric junction and show that the differential conductance may exhibit peaks at different values of the voltage depending on the polarization of the spin filter, and the relative angle between the exchange fields and the magnetization of the barrier. Our findings provide a plausible explanation for existing experiments on Josephson junctions with magnetic barriers, predict further effects, and show how spin-polarized supercurrents in hybrid structures can be created.

Spin-polarized supercurrents for spintronics

A marriage between superconductivity and ferromagnetism is opening the door for new spin-based applications.