Effect of a spin-active interface on proximity-induced superconductivity in topological insulators

Abstract

We examine the effect of a spin-active interface on the symmetry of proximity-induced superconducting pairing amplitudes in topological insulators. We develop a model to investigate the leading order contribution to the pairing amplitude considering 3 different kinds of spin-active interfaces: 1) those that induce spin-dependent scattering phases, 2) those that flip the spin of incident electrons, and 3) interfaces that both induce spin-dependent phases and flip the spins of incident electrons. We find that in cases (1) and (3) odd-frequency triplet pairing is induced in the TI while for case (2) no odd-frequency pairing is induced to leading order. We compare our results to those for normal metals and ferromagnetic materials finding that the nontrivial spin structure of the TI leads to qualitatively different behavior.

5 pages, 1 figure

References in corpus (7)

• Superconducting proximity effect and Majorana fermions at the surface of a topological insulator
• Discovery (theoretical prediction and experimental observation) of a large-gap topological-insulator class with spin-polarized single-Dirac-cone on the surface
• Cross-sectional imaging of individual layers and buried interfaces of graphene-based heterostructures and superlattices
• Proximity effect at the superconductor - topological insulator interface
• Odd-frequency pairing in normal metal/superconductor junctions
• Pairing symmetry conversion by spin-active interfaces in superconducting junctions
• The role of interface transparency and spin-dependent scattering in diffusive ferromagnet/superconductor heterostructures

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Odd-frequency superconductivity
• The Role of Odd-Frequency Pairing in Multiband Superconductors
• Spin caloritronics with superconductors: Enhanced thermoelectric effects, generalized Onsager response-matrix, and thermal spin currents
• Odd-frequency pairing and Kerr effect in the heavy-fermion superconductor UPt${}_3$
• General conditions for proximity-induced odd-frequency superconductivity in two-dimensional electronic systems
• Odd-frequency Superconductivity in Driven Systems
• Probing topological transitions in HgTe/CdTe quantum wells by magneto-optical measurements
• Pair symmetry conversion in driven multiband superconductors
• Van der Waals heterostructures with spin-orbit coupling
• Proximity-Induced Mixed Odd and Even Frequency Pairings in Monolayer NbSe${}_2$
• Odd-frequency superconductivity induced by non-magnetic impurities
• Odd-frequency pairing in a superconductor coupled to two parallel nanowires
• Theory of Josephson Current on a Magnetically Doped Topological Insulator