TY - JOUR
T1 - Spin-orbit coupling suppression and singlet-state blocking of spin-triplet Cooper pairs
AU - Komori, Sachio
AU - Devine-Stoneman, James M.
AU - Ohnishi, Kohei
AU - Yang, Guang
AU - Devizorova, Zhanna
AU - Mironov, Sergey
AU - Montiel, Xavier
AU - Olthof, Linde A.B.Olde
AU - Cohen, Lesley F.
AU - Kurebayashi, Hidekazu
AU - Blamire, Mark G.
AU - Buzdin, Alexandre I.
AU - Robinson, Jason W.A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/1/13
Y1 - 2021/1/13
N2 - An inhomogeneous magnetic exchange field at a superconductor/ferromagnet interface converts spin-singlet Cooper pairs to a spin-polarized triplet state. Although the decay envelope of triplet pairs within ferromagnetic materials is well studied, little is known about their decay in nonmagnetic metals and superconductors and, in particular, in the presence of spin-orbit coupling (SOC). Here, we investigate devices in which singlet and triplet supercurrents propagate 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. In the superconducting state of Nb, triplet supercurrents are not able to couple with the singlet wave function and are thus blocked by the absence of available equilibrium states in the singlet gap. The results offer insight into the dynamics between s-wave singlet and s-wave triplet states.
AB - An inhomogeneous magnetic exchange field at a superconductor/ferromagnet interface converts spin-singlet Cooper pairs to a spin-polarized triplet state. Although the decay envelope of triplet pairs within ferromagnetic materials is well studied, little is known about their decay in nonmagnetic metals and superconductors and, in particular, in the presence of spin-orbit coupling (SOC). Here, we investigate devices in which singlet and triplet supercurrents propagate 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. In the superconducting state of Nb, triplet supercurrents are not able to couple with the singlet wave function and are thus blocked by the absence of available equilibrium states in the singlet gap. The results offer insight into the dynamics between s-wave singlet and s-wave triplet states.
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U2 - 10.1126/sciadv.abe0128
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.abe0128
M3 - Article
C2 - 33523885
AN - SCOPUS:85099980806
VL - 7
JO - Science advances
JF - Science advances
SN - 2375-2548
IS - 3
M1 - eabe0128
ER -