To increase the efficiency of the superconducting spin valve (SSV), special attention should be paid to the choice of ferromagnetic materials for the F1/F2/S SSV multilayer. Here, we report the preparation and the superconducting properties of the SSV heterostructures where Pb is used as the superconducting S layer. In the magnetic part of the structure, we use the same starting material, the Heusler alloy Co2Cr1−xFexAly, for both F1 and F2 layers. We utilize the tunability of the magnetic properties of this alloy, which, depending on the deposition conditions, forms either an almost fully spin-polarized half-metallic F1 layer or a weakly ferromagnetic F2 layer. We demonstrate that the combination of the distinct properties of these two layers boosts the generation of the long-range triplet component of the superconducting condensate in the fabricated SSV structures and yields superior values of the triplet spin-valve effect of more than 1 K and of the operational temperature window of the SSV up to 0.6 K.
@article{arxiv.2411.17352,
title = {Expanding the operational temperature window of a superconducting spin valve},
author = {A. A. Kamashev and N. N. Garif'yanov and A. A. Validov and V. Kataev and A. S. Osin and Ya. V. Fominov and I. A. Garifullin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.17352},
year = {2024}
}