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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen
TT 49: Poster Session: Superconductivity
TT 49.10: Poster
Wednesday, April 3, 2019, 15:00–18:30, Poster D
Spin effects in a superconductor in proximity to an antiferromagnetic insulator — Akashdeep Kamra1, •Ali Rezaei2, and Wolfgang Belzig2 — 1Center for Quantum Spintronics, Department of Physics, NTNU, Norway — 2Department of Physics, University of Konstanz, Germany
Inspired by recent feats in exchange coupling antiferromagnets to an adjacent material, we demonstrate the possibility of employing them for inducing spin-splitting in a superconductor, thereby avoiding the parasitic effects of ferromagnets employed to this end. We derive the Gor’kov equation for the matrix Green’s function in the superconducting layer, considering a microscopic model for its disordered interface with a two-sublattice magnetic insulator. We find that an antiferromagnetic insulator with effectively uncompensated interface induces a large, disorder-resistant spin-splitting in the adjacent superconductor, thereby addressing the feasibility of a wide range of devices involving spin-split superconductors. In addition, we find contributions to the self-energy stemming from the interfacial disorder. Within our model, these mimic impurity and spin-flip scattering, while another breaks the symmetries in particle-hole and spin spaces. The latter contribution, however, vanishes in the quasi-classical approximation and thus, does not significantly affect the superconducting state. Our results illustrate the potential of antiferromagnets for superconducting spintronics avoiding stray fields usually accompanying ferromagnets.
[1] Akashdeep Kamra, Ali Rezaei, Wolfgang Belzig, arXiv:1806.10356 (2018); accepted in PRL