Meissner Effect Probing of Odd-Frequency Triplet Pairing in Superconducting Spin Valves

Abstract

Superconducting correlations which are long-ranged in magnetic systems have attracted much attention due to their spin-polarization properties and potential use in spintronic devices. Whereas experiments have demonstrated the slow decay of such correlations, it has proven more difficult to obtain a smoking gun signature of their odd-frequency character which is responsible, e.g. for their gapless behavior. We here demonstrate that the magnetic susceptibility response of a normal metal in contact with a superconducting spin-valve provides precisely this signature, namely in form of an anomalous "positive" Meissner effect which may be tuned back to a conventional "negative" Meissner response simply by altering the magnetization configuration of the spin-valve.