Out-of-Equilibrium Spin Transport in Mesoscopic Superconductors

Abstract

The excitations in conventional superconductors, Bogoliubov quasiparticles, are spin-1/2 fermions but their charge is energy-dependent and, in fact, zero at the gap edge. Therefore, in superconductors (unlike normal metals) the spin and charge degrees of freedom may be separated. In this article, we review spin injection into conventional superconductors and focus on recent experiments on mesoscopic superconductors. We show how quasiparticle spin transport and out-of-equilibrium spin dependent superconductivity can be triggered using the Zeeman splitting of the quasiparticle density of states in thin-film superconductors with small spin-mixing scattering. Finally, we address the spin dynamics and the feedback of quasiparticle spin imbalances on the strength of the superconducting energy gap.