Angular dependence of superconductivity in superconductor/spin-valve heterostructures

Alejandro A. Jara; Christopher Safranski; Ilya N. Krivorotov; Chien-Te Wu; Abdul N. Malmi-Kakkada; Oriol T. Valls; Klaus Halterman

doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.89.184502

Angular dependence of superconductivity in superconductor/spin-valve heterostructures

Alejandro A. Jara, Christopher Safranski, Ilya N. Krivorotov, Chien-Te Wu, Abdul N. Malmi-Kakkada, Oriol T. Valls, Klaus Halterman

Department of Electrophysics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

63 Scopus citations

Abstract

We report measurements of the superconducting transition temperature, Tc, in CoO/Co/Cu/Co/Nb multilayers as a function of the angle α between the magnetic moments of the Co layers. Our measurements reveal that Tc(α) is a nonmonotonic function, with a minimum near α=π/2. Numerical self-consistent solutions of the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations quantitatively and accurately describe the behavior of Tc as a function of α and layer thicknesses in these superconductor/spin-valve heterostructures. We show that experimental data and theoretical evidence agree in relating Tc(α) to enhanced penetration of the triplet component of the condensate into the Co/Cu/Co spin valve in the maximally noncollinear magnetic configuration.

Original language	English
Article number	184502
Journal	Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics
Volume	89
Issue number	18
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.89.184502
State	Published - 8 May 2014

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abstract = "We report measurements of the superconducting transition temperature, Tc, in CoO/Co/Cu/Co/Nb multilayers as a function of the angle α between the magnetic moments of the Co layers. Our measurements reveal that Tc(α) is a nonmonotonic function, with a minimum near α=π/2. Numerical self-consistent solutions of the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations quantitatively and accurately describe the behavior of Tc as a function of α and layer thicknesses in these superconductor/spin-valve heterostructures. We show that experimental data and theoretical evidence agree in relating Tc(α) to enhanced penetration of the triplet component of the condensate into the Co/Cu/Co spin valve in the maximally noncollinear magnetic configuration.",

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T1 - Angular dependence of superconductivity in superconductor/spin-valve heterostructures

AU - Jara, Alejandro A.

AU - Safranski, Christopher

AU - Krivorotov, Ilya N.

AU - Wu, Chien-Te

AU - Malmi-Kakkada, Abdul N.

AU - Valls, Oriol T.

AU - Halterman, Klaus

PY - 2014/5/8

Y1 - 2014/5/8

N2 - We report measurements of the superconducting transition temperature, Tc, in CoO/Co/Cu/Co/Nb multilayers as a function of the angle α between the magnetic moments of the Co layers. Our measurements reveal that Tc(α) is a nonmonotonic function, with a minimum near α=π/2. Numerical self-consistent solutions of the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations quantitatively and accurately describe the behavior of Tc as a function of α and layer thicknesses in these superconductor/spin-valve heterostructures. We show that experimental data and theoretical evidence agree in relating Tc(α) to enhanced penetration of the triplet component of the condensate into the Co/Cu/Co spin valve in the maximally noncollinear magnetic configuration.

AB - We report measurements of the superconducting transition temperature, Tc, in CoO/Co/Cu/Co/Nb multilayers as a function of the angle α between the magnetic moments of the Co layers. Our measurements reveal that Tc(α) is a nonmonotonic function, with a minimum near α=π/2. Numerical self-consistent solutions of the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations quantitatively and accurately describe the behavior of Tc as a function of α and layer thicknesses in these superconductor/spin-valve heterostructures. We show that experimental data and theoretical evidence agree in relating Tc(α) to enhanced penetration of the triplet component of the condensate into the Co/Cu/Co spin valve in the maximally noncollinear magnetic configuration.

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DO - 10.1103/PhysRevB.89.184502

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Angular dependence of superconductivity in superconductor/spin-valve heterostructures

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