Josephson current in ballistic heterostructures with spin-active interfaces

Abstract

We develop a general microscopic theory of dc Josephson effect in hybrid SNS structures with ballistic electrodes and spin-active NS interfaces. We establish a direct relation between the spectrum of Andreev levels and the Josephson current which contains complete information about non-trivial interplay between Andreev reflection and spin-dependent interface scattering. The system exhibits a rich structure of properties sensitive to spin-dependent barrier transmissions, spin-mixing angles, relative magnetization orientation of interfaces and the kinematic phase of scattered electrons. We analyze the current-phase relations and identify the conditions for the presence of a pi-junction state in the systems under consideration. We also analyze resonant enhancement of the supercurrent in gate-voltage-driven nanojunctions. As compared to the non-magnetic case, this effect can be strongly modified by spin-dependent scattering at NS interfaces.

11 pages, 9 figures; version published in Phys. Rev. B

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• Electronic transport through ferromagnetic and superconducting junctions with spin-filter tunneling barriers
• Theory of superconductor-ferromagnet point contact spectra: the case of strong spin polarization
• Andreev reflection at half-metal-superconductor interfaces with non-uniform magnetization
• Spin-polarized Josephson and quasiparticle currents in superconducting spin-filter tunnel junctions
• The dc Josephson current in a long multi-channel quantum wire
• Fractional Shapiro steps without fractional Josephson effect
• Anomalous supercurrent modulated by interfacial magnetizations in Josephson junctions with ferromagnetic bilayers
• Tuning the 0$-\pi$ Josephson junction with a magnetic impurity: Role of tunnel contacts, exchange coupling, $e-e$ interactions and high-spin states
• Many-body quantum dynamics of spin-orbit coupled Andreev states in a Zeeman field
• Non-local spin-sensitive electron transport in diffusive proximity heterostructures
• Giant thermopower in superconducting heterostructures with spin-active interfaces
• Towards 4 formalisms description of properties of the unconventional Josephson junction and unconventional SQUIDs made by putting non-superconducting strip on the top of superconducting strip