Intrinsic spin-orbit interaction in diffusive normal wire Josephson weak links: supercurrent and density of states

Abstract

We study the effect of the intrinsic (Rashba or Dresselhaus) spin-orbit interaction in superconductor--nanowire--superconductor (SNS) weak links in the presence of a spin-splitting field that can result either from an intrinsic exchange field or the Zeeman effect of an applied field. We solve the full non-linear Usadel equations numerically and analyze the resulting supercurrent through the weak link and the behavior of the density of states in the center of the wire. We point out how the presence of the spin-orbit interaction gives rise to a long-range spin triplet supercurrent, which remains finite even in the limit of very large exchange fields. In particular, we show how rotating the field leads to a sequence of transitions between the 0 and $\pi$ states as a function of the angle between the exchange field and the spin-orbit field. Simultaneously, the triplet pairing leads to a zero-energy peak in the density of states. We proceed by solving the linearized Usadel equations, showing the correspondence to the solutions of the full equations and detail the emergence of the long-range supercurrent components. Our studies are relevant for on-going investigations of supercurrent in semiconductor nanowires in the limit of several channels and in the presence of disorder.

11 pages, 10 figures; updated discussion of the angular dependence of the supercurrent

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• Supercurrent in ferromagnetic Josephson junctions with heavy metal interlayers
• Spin caloritronics with superconductors: Enhanced thermoelectric effects, generalized Onsager response-matrix, and thermal spin currents
• Usadel equation in the presence of intrinsic spin-orbit coupling: A unified theory of magneto-electric effects in normal and superconducting systems
• Magnetoanisotropic Josephson effect due to interfacial spin-orbit fields in superconductor/ferromagnet/superconductor junctions
• Electric control of superconducting transition through a spin-orbit coupled interface
• Ballistic Josephson junctions in the presence of generic spin dependent fields
• Long-ranged triplet supercurrent in a single in-plane ferromagnet with spin-orbit coupled contacts to superconductors
• Switchable Josephson current in junctions with spin-orbit coupling
• Proximity effect in a ferromagnetic semiconductor with spin-orbit interactions
• Supercurrent Vortex Pinball via a Triplet Cooper Pair Inverse Edelstein Effect
• Signatures of superconducting triplet pairing in Ni--Ga-bilayer junctions
• Effects of spin orbit coupling on proximity induced superconductivity
• Spin-split superconductivity in spin-orbit coupled hybrid nanowires with ferromagnetic barriers
• Controlling superconducting spin flow with spin-flip immunity using a single homogeneous ferromagnet