Angular dependence of superconductivity in superconductor / spin valve heterostructures

Abstract

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

9 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (8)

• A spin triplet supercurrent through the half-metallic ferromagnet CrO2
• Evidence for Triplet Superconductivity in a Superconductor-Ferromagnet Spin Valve
• Superconducting triplet spin valve
• Odd Triplet Pairing in clean Superconductor/Ferromagnet heterostructures
• Observation of the Triplet Spin-Valve Effect in a Superconductor-Ferromagnet Heterostructure
• Induced Triplet Pairing in clean s-wave Superconductor/Ferromagnet layered structures
• Proximity effects and triplet correlations in Ferromagnet/Ferromagnet/Superconductor nanostructures
• Unanticipated proximity behavior in ferromagnet-superconductor heterostructures with controlled magnetic noncollinearity

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Signature of magnetic-dependent gapless odd frequency states at superconductor/ferromagnet interfaces
• Spin Supercurrent, Magnetization Dynamics, and Phi-State in Spin-Textured Josephson Junctions
• Proximity Induced Vortices and Long-Range Triplet Supercurrents in Ferromagnetic Josephson Junctions and Spin Valves
• Superconducting spin-valve effect in heterostructures with ferromagnetic Heusler alloy layers
• Tunneling Conductance and Spin Transport in Clean Ferromagnet-Ferromagnet-Superconductor Heterostructures
• Spin-triplet supercurrent in Josephson junctions containing a synthetic antiferromagnet with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy
• Transport in Ferromagnet/Superconductor spin valves
• Colossal proximity effect in a superconducting triplet spin valve based on halfmetallic ferromagnetic CrO2
• Pseudo spin-valve switch based on ferromagnet/superconductor/ferromagnet trilayer microbridge