Signatures of enhanced spin-triplet superconductivity induced by interfacial properties
Abstract
While spin-triplet pairing remains elusive in nature, there is a growing effort to realize proximity-induced equal-spin triplet superconductivity in junctions with magnetic regions or an applied magnetic field and common -wave superconductors. To enhance such spin-triplet contribution, it is expected that junctions with a weak interfacial barrier and strong spin-orbit coupling are desirable. Intuitively, a weak interfacial barrier enables a robust proximity-induced superconductivity and strong spin-orbit coupling promotes spin mixing, converting spin-singlet into spin-triplet superconductivity. In contrast, we reveal a nonmonotonic spin-triplet contribution with the strength of the interfacial barrier and spin-orbit coupling. This picture is established by considering different signatures in conductance and superconducting correlations, as well as by performing self-consistent calculations. As a result, we identify a strongly enhanced spin-triplet superconductivity, realized for an intermediate strength of interfacial barrier and spin-orbit coupling. In junctions with magnetic regions, an enhanced spin-triplet superconductivity leads to a large magnetoanisotropy of conductance and superconducting correlations. This picture of an enhanced spin-triplet superconductivity is consistent with experiments demonstrating a huge increase in the conductance magnetoanisotropy, which we predict can be further enhanced at a finite bias.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2409.04943,
title = {Signatures of enhanced spin-triplet superconductivity induced by interfacial properties},
author = {Chenghao Shen and Jong E. Han and Thomas Vezin and Mohammad Alidoust and Igor Žutić},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.04943},
year = {2024}
}