Proximity-induced equilibrium supercurrent and perfect superconducting diode effect due to band asymmetry

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the consequences of proximity-induced conventional superconductivity in metals that break time-reversal and inversion symmetries through their energy dispersion. We discover behaviors impossible in an isolated superconductor such as an equilibrium supercurrent that apparently violates a no-go theorem and, at suitable topological defects, non-conservation of electric charge reminiscent of the chiral anomaly. The equilibrium supercurrent is expected to be trainable by a helical electromagnetic field in the normal state. Remarkably, if the band asymmetry exceeds the critical current of the parent superconductor in appropriate units, we predict a perfect superconducting diode effect with diode coefficient unity. We propose toroidal metals such as UNi${}_4$B and metals with directional scalar spin chiral order as potential platforms.

7+2 pages, 3 figures. Added result on perfect superconducting diode effect without fine-tuning

References in corpus (19)

• Persistent currents in normal metal rings
• Towards a microscopic theory of toroidal moments in bulk periodic crystals
• Field-free superconducting diode effect in noncentrosymmetric superconductor/ferromagnet multilayers
• Toroidal order in metals without local inversion symmetry
• Demonstration of a superconducting diode-with-memory, operational at zero magnetic field with switchable nonreciprocity
• Magnetoelectrics in Disordered Topological Insulator Josephson Junctions
• Hybrid helical state and superconducting diode effect in S/F/TI heterostructures
• Superconducting diode effect and nonreciprocal transition lines
• Spontaneous supercurrent and $\varphi$0 phase shift parallel to magnetized topological insulator interfaces
• Suppression of Spontaneous Supercurrents in a Chiral p-Wave Superconductor
• Supercurrent diode effect in thin film Nb tracks
• Josephson junctions of Weyl and multi-Weyl semimetals
• Vortex avalanches in the non-centrosymmetric superconductor Li2Pt3B
• Tunable planar Josephson junctions driven by time-dependent spin-orbit coupling
• Unified Topological Response Theory for Gapped and Gapless Free Fermions
• Supercurrent generation by spin injection in an s-wave superconductor-Rashba metal bilayer
• A three-order-parameter bistable magnetoelectric multiferroic metal
• Toroidal order in a partially disordered state on a layered triangular lattice: implication to UNi4B
• Anomalous supercurrent modulated by interfacial magnetizations in Josephson junctions with ferromagnetic bilayers

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Field-free Josephson diode effect in altermagnet/normal metal/altermagnet junctions
• Intrinsic superconducting diode effects in tilted Weyl and Dirac semimetals
• Field-free Josephson diode effect in interacting chiral quantum dot junctions
• Josephson diode effect in junctions of superconductors with band asymmetric metals
• Floquet-engineered diode performance in a Majorana-quantum dot Josephson junction
• Enhanced Superconducting Diode Effect in the Asymmetric Hatsugai-Kohmoto Model
• Universal route towards field-free electrically polarity-reversible Josephson diode
• Thermodynamic Constraints on Perfect Equilibrium Superconducting Diodes