Spin accumulation induced by a singlet supercurrent

Abstract

We show that a supercurrent carried by spinless singlet Cooper pairs can induce a spin accumulation in the normal metal interlayer of a Josephson junction. This phenomenon occurs when a nonequilibrium spin-energy mode is excited in the normal metal, for instance by an applied temperature gradient between ferromagnetic electrodes. Without supercurrent, the spin accumulation vanishes in the Josephson junction. With supercurrent, a spatially antisymmetric spin accumulation is generated that can be measured by tunneling to a polarized detector electrode. We explain the physical origin of the induced spin accumulation by the combined effect of a Doppler shift induced by a flow of singlet Cooper pairs, and the spin-energy mode excited in the normal metal. This effect shows that spin control is possible even with singlet Cooper pairs in conventional superconductors, a finding which could open new perspectives in superconducting spintronics.

arXiv comment4 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Spin-dependent coupling of supercurrent and nonequilibrium quasiparticles in high-field superconductors