Enhancement of Josephson Supercurrent in a $\pi$-Junction state by Chiral Antiferromagnetism

Abstract

Magnetic order typically disrupts superconductivity, reducing the supercurrent. Here, we show that chiral antiferromagnetism, with non-relativistic spin-split bands and distinctive valley-locked spin texture, can instead significantly enhance Josephson supercurrents. This enhancement stems from the emergence of dominant equal-spin triplet pairing and strong fluctuations of singlet pairing in momentum space, both induced by chiral antiferromagnetism. We demonstrate these results in Josephson junctions composed of chiral antiferromagnetic metals and conventional superconductors on kagome lattices. Furthermore, we show that the enhanced Josephson supercurrent is stabilized in a $\pi$-junction state. These phenomena persist across a broad energy range and remain stable for different temperatures and junction lengths. Our results unveil a previously unexplored mechanism for enhancing supercurrent by strong magnetic order and provide crucial insights into the large Josephson currents observed in Mn${}_3$Ge.

14 pages, 14 figures

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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Finite-momentum mixed singlet-triplet pairing in chiral antiferromagnets induced by even-parity spin texture