A1 Journal article (refereed)
Proximity effect in superconducting heterostructures with strong spin-orbit coupling and spin splitting (2019)


Lu, Y., & Heikkilä, T. T. (2019). Proximity effect in superconducting heterostructures with strong spin-orbit coupling and spin splitting. Physical Review B, 100(10), Article 104514. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.100.104514


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Publication details

All authors or editorsLu, Yao; Heikkilä, Tero T.

Journal or seriesPhysical Review B

ISSN2469-9950

eISSN2469-9969

Publication year2019

Volume100

Issue number10

Article number104514

PublisherAmerican Physical Society

Publication countryUnited States

Publication languageEnglish

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.100.104514

Publication open accessNot open

Publication channel open access

Publication is parallel published (JYX)https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/65943

Publication is parallel publishedhttps://arxiv.org/abs/1905.11135


Abstract

It has been shown that singlet Cooper pairs can be converted into triplet ones and diffuse into a ferromagnet over a long distance in a phenomenon known as the long-range proximity effect (LRPE). This happens in materials with inhomogeneous magnetism or spin-orbit coupling (SOC). Most of the previous studies focus on the cases with small SOC and exchange field. However, the physics was not clear when SOC and exchange field strength are both much greater than the disorder strength. In this work, we consider a two-dimensional system with a large Rashba-type SOC and exchange field in the case where only one band is partially occupied. We develop a generalized quasiclassical theory by projecting the Green function onto the partially occupied band (POB). We find that when the SOC energy scale is comparable with the exchange field, there is no LRPE. The reason is that the nonmagnetic impurities together with the large SOC and exchange field can effectively generate spin-flip scattering, which suppresses the proximity effect. We also show that when increasing either SOC or exchange field, the decay length of superconducting correlations can be significantly increased due to an approximately restored time reversal symmetry or spin rotation symmetry around the z (out-of-plane) axis.


Keywordssuperconductivitysuperconductorsmagnetism


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Ministry reportingYes

Reporting Year2019

JUFO rating2


Last updated on 2024-25-03 at 13:19