Proximity effect in superconductor/antiferromagnet hybrids: Neel triplets and impurity suppression of superconductivity

Abstract

Two possible physical mechanisms of superconductivity suppression at superconductor/antiferromagnet (S/AF) interfaces, which work even for interfaces with compensated antiferromagnets, were reported. One of them suggests that the Neel order of the AF induces rapidly oscillating spin-triplet correlations in the S layer. They are called Neel triplets, and they suppress singlet superconductivity. Nonmagnetic disorder destroys this type of triplet correlations. As a result, the critical temperature of the S/AF bilayer grows with impurity strength. The second mechanism, on the contrary, suggests that nonmagnetic impurity scattering suppresses superconductivity in S/AF hybrids. The predictions were made in the framework of two different quasiclassical approaches [G. A. Bobkov et al. Phys. Rev. B 106, 144512 (2022) and E. H. Fyhn et al. arXiv:2210.09325]. Here we suggest the unified theory of the proximity effect in thin-film S/AF structures, which incorporates both pictures as limiting cases, and we study the proximity effect at S/AF interfaces for arbitrary impurity strength, chemical potential, and the value of the Neel exchange field.

7 pages, 9 figures

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• Spin Insulatronics
• Néel proximity effect at antiferromagnet/superconductor interfaces
• Magnetic control of superconducting heterostructures using compensated antiferromagnets
• Superconducting proximity effect and long-ranged triplets in dirty metallic antiferromagnets
• Magnon-Cooparons in magnet-superconductor hybrids
• Quasiclassical theory for antiferromagnetic metals
• Penetration depth of Cooper pairs in the IrMn antiferromagnet
• Thermally induced spin torque and domain wall motion in superconductor/antiferromagnetic insulator bilayers
• Giant magnetoanisotropy in the Josephson effect and switching of staggered order in antiferromagnets
• Renormalization of antiferromagnetic magnons by superconducting condensate and quasiparticles

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