Search

Proximity-induced long-range spin-triplet supercurrents, important for the field of superconducting spintronics, are generated in superconducting/ferromagnetic heterostructures when interfacial magnetic inhomogeneities responsible for spin mixing and spin flip scattering are present. The multilayer stack Nb/Cr/Fe/Cr/Nb has been shown to support such exotic currents when fabricated into Josephson junction devices. However, creating pure spin currents controllably in superconductors outside of the Josephson junction architecture is a bottleneck to progress. Recently, ferromagnetic resonance was proposed as a possible direction, the signature of pure supercurrent creation being an enhancement of the Gilbert damping below the superconducting critical temperature, but the necessary conditions are still poorly established. Consistent with theoretical prediction, we demonstrate conclusively that pumping pure spin currents into a superconductor is only possible when conditions supporting proximity-induced spin-triplet effects are satisfied. Our study is an important step forward for superconducting pure spin current creation and manipulation, considerably advancing the field of superconducting spintronics., Comment: Main Text pages 1-21, 3 figures. Supplementary 23-34, 11 figures

An inhomogeneous magnetic exchange field at a superconductor/ferromagnet interface converts spin-singlet Cooper pairs to a spin-aligned (i.e. spin-polarized) triplet state. Although the decay envelope of such triplet pairs within ferromagnetic materials is well studied, little is known about their decay in non-magnetic metals and superconductors, and in particular in the presence of spin-orbit coupling (SOC). Here we investigate devices in which triplet supercurrents are injected 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 interacting with the spin associated with triplet pairs. In the superconducting state of Nb, triplet supercurrents are not able to couple with the singlet wavefunction and thus blocked by the absence of available equilibrium states in the singlet gap. The results offer new insight into the dynamics between s-wave singlet and s-wave triplet states., Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures

Studies of the electronic spectral function in cuprates by Angle-Resolved Photo-Emission Spectroscopy reveal unusual features in the pseudogap phase that persist in the superconducting phase. We address here these observations based on the recently proposed idea that the pseudogap is due to the fractionalization of modulated particle-particle pairs (a Pair Density Wave) into uniform particle-particle and modulated particle-hole pairs. The constraint that appears between these two types of pairs can be seen has an amplitude for the pseudogap energy scale. This constraint directly modify the electronic spectral function in the pseudogap phase. We derive a self-consistent equation for the pseudogap amplitude and show that it leads to the formation of Fermi arcs. The band dispersion obtained in the anti-nodal region is in good agreement with experimental ARPES observations in Pb$_{0.55}$Bi$_{1.5}$Sr$_{1.6}$La$_{0.4}$CuO$_{6+\delta}$ (Bi2201) and present a back-bending that goes to the Fermi level as we go away from the antinodal region. We also discuss the temperature dependence of the ARPES spectrum in the pseudogap and in the superconducting state.

Recent ferromagnetic resonance experiments and theory of Pt/Nb/Ni8Fe2 proximity-coupled structures strongly suggest that spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in Pt in conjunction with a magnetic exchange field in Ni8Fe2 are the essential ingredients to generate a pure spin supercurrent channel in Nb. Here, by substituting Pt for a perpendicularly magnetized Pt/Co/Pt spin-sink, we are able to demonstrate the role of SOC, and show that pure spin supercurrent pumping efficiency across Nb is tunable by controlling the magnetization direction of Co. By inserting a Cu spacer with weak SOC between Nb and Pt/(Co/Pt) spin-sink, we also prove that Rashba type SOC is key for forming and transmitting pure spin supercurrents across Nb. Finally, by engineering these properties within a single multilayer structure, we demonstrate a prototype superconducting spin-wave (SW) device in which lateral SW propagation is gateable via the opening or closing of a vertical pure spin supercurrent channel in Nb., Comment: 28 pages, 4 figures

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., Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures

Topological states of matter are at the root of some of the most fascinating phenomena in condensed matter physics. Here we argue that skyrmions in the pseudo-spin space related to an emerging SU(2) symmetry enlighten many mysterious properties of the pseudogap phase in under-doped cuprates. We detail the role of the SU(2) symmetry in controlling the phase diagram of the cuprates, in particular how a cascade of phase transitions explains the arising of the pseudogap, superconducting and charge modulation phases seen at low temperature. We specify the structure of the charge modulations inside the vortex core below $T_{c}$, as well as in a wide temperature region above $T_{c}$, which is a signature of the skyrmion topological structure. We argue that the underlying SU(2) symmetry is the main structure controlling the emergent complexity of excitations at the pseudogap scale $T^{*}$. The theory yields a gapping of a large part of the anti-nodal region of the Brillouin zone, along with $q=0$ phase transitions, of both nematic and loop currents characters.

Recent transport experiments in the cuprate superconductors linked the opening of the pseudogap to a change in electronic dispersion [S. Badoux et al., Nature 531, 210 (2015)]. Transport measurements showed that the carrier density sharply changes from $x$ to $1+x$ at the pseudogap critical doping, in accordance with the change from Fermi arcs at low doping to a large hole Fermi surface at high doping. The SU(2) theory of cuprates shows that antiferromagnetic short range interactions cause the arising of both charge and superconducting orders, which are related by an SU(2) symmetry. The fluctuations associated with this symmetry form a pseudogap phase. Here we derive the renormalised electronic propagator under the SU(2) dome, and calculate the spectral functions and transport quantities of the renormalised bands. We show that their evolution with doping matches both spectral and transport measurements.

We study the fate of the so-called $\Theta_{II}$-loop-current order that breaks both time-reversal and parity symmetries in a two-dimensional hot spot model with antiferromagnetically mediated interactions, using Fermi surfaces relevant to the phenomenology of the cuprate superconductors. We start from a three-band Emery model describing the hopping of holes in the CuO$_{2}$ plane that includes two hopping parameters $t_{pp}$ and $t_{pd}$, local on-site Coulomb interactions $U_{d}$ and $U_{p}$ and nearest-neighbor $V_{pd}$ couplings between the fermions in the copper [Cu$(3d_{x^{2}-y^{2}})$] and oxygen [O$(2p_{x})$ and O$(2p_{y})$] orbitals. By focusing on the lowest-energy band, we proceed to decouple the local interaction $U_{d}$ of the Cu orbital in the spin channel using a Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation to arrive at the interacting part of the so-called spin-fermion model. We also decouple the nearest-neighbor interaction $V_{pd}$ to introduce the order parameter of the $\Theta_{II}$-loop-current order. In this way, we are able to construct a consistent mean-field theory that describes the strong competition between the composite order parameter made of a quadrupole-density-wave and $d$-wave pairing fluctuations proposed in Efetov \emph{et al.} [Nat. Phys. \textbf{9}, 442 (2013)] with the $\Theta_{II}$-loop-current order parameter that is argued to be relevant for explaining important aspects of the physics of the pseudogap phase displayed in the underdoped cuprates., Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures. v2: minor revisions, references added. The magnetic moment per unit-cell associated with the $\Theta_{II}$-loop-current-phase is calculated and compared with experimental results. Accepted for publication in Physical Review B

We study the proximity effect in a superconductor (S)-normal metal (N) bilayer under in-plane magnetic field. A compensation between the Zeeman effect and the energy splitting between bonding and anti-bonding levels leads to a magnetic field induced superconducting phase in the (H,T) phase diagram of the S-N bilayer well above the standard paramagnetic limit. We demonstrate that the presence of the non-magnetic impurities shrink the region of field induced superconductivity existence in S-N and S-S bilayers.

We study the influence of the configuration of the majority and minority spin subbands of electron spectra on the properties of atomic-scaled superconductor-ferromagnet S-F-S and F-S-F hybrid structures. At low temperatures, the S/F/S junction is either a 0 or junction depending on the energy shift between S and F materials and the anisotropy of the Fermi surfaces. We found that the spin switch effect in F/S/F system can be reversed if the minority spin electron spectra in F metal is of the hole-like type.