Proximity effect in superconductor/conical magnet heterostructures
Abstract
The presence of a spin-flip potential at the interface between a superconductor and a ferromagnetic metal allows for the generation of equal-spin spin-triplet Cooper pairs. These Cooper pairs are compatible with the exchange interaction within the ferromagnetic region and hence allow for the long-range proximity effect through a ferromagnet or half-metal. One suitable spin-flip potential is provided by incorporating the conical magnet Holmium (Ho) into the interface. The conical magnetic structure is characterised by an opening angle α with respect to the crystal c-axis and a turning (or pitch) angle β measuring the rotation of magnetisation with respect to the adjacent layers. Here, we present results showing the influence of conical magnet interface layers with varying α and β on the efficiency of the generation of equal-spin spin-triplet pairing. The results are obtained by self-consistent solutions of the microscopic Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations in the clean limit within a tight-binding model of the heterostructure. In particular, the dependence of unequal-spin and equal-spin spin-triplet pairing correlations on the conical magnetic angles α and β are discussed in detail.