Time-reversal symmetry breaking at Josephson tunnel junctions of purely d-wave superconductors

Abstract

We study spontaneous time-reversal symmetry breaking at Josephson tunnel junctions of d-wave superconductors in the absence of subdominant components of the order parameter. For tunnel junctions, when the orientation is close to 0/45 (for which a gap lobe points towards the junction on one side and a gap node on the other), the mechanism of the symmetry breaking is the splitting of midgap states (MGS) by spontaneous establishment of a phase difference $\varphi =\pm \pi /2$ across the junction. This occurs for transparencies $D\gg {\xi }_0/\lambda$ and temperatures $k_{B}T\ll D{\Delta }_0$, where ${\xi }_0$ is the coherence length, $\lambda$ is the penetration depth, and ${\Delta }_0$ is the maximum energy gap. On the other hand. tunnel junctions with $D\ll {\xi }_0/\lambda$ effectively behave as surfaces, for which the mechanism of symmetry breaking is self-induced Doppler shifts of MGS. For this instability, we calculate the phase transition temperature $k_B{T}_{TRSB}=(1/6)({\xi }_0/\lambda ){\Delta }_0$ and show that the spatial shape of the gap is unimportant.

5 pages, 2 figures embedded; rewritten introduction

References in corpus (1)

• Low-Temperature Magnetic Penetration Depth in d-Wave Superconductors: Zero-Energy Bound State and Impurity Effects

Cited by in corpus (25)

• Andreev bound states in high-$T_c$ superconducting junctions
• Paramagnetic instability of small topological superconductors
• Spontaneously broken time-reversal symmetry in high-temperature superconductors
• Broken translational and time-reversal symmetry in superconducting films
• Quasiclassical Theory of Spontaneous Currents at Surfaces and Interfaces of d-Wave Superconductors
• Spontaneously broken translational symmetry at edges of high-temperature superconductors: thermodynamics in magnetic field
• Consequences of bulk odd-frequency superconducting states for the classification of Cooper pairs
• d+is vs d+id' Time Reversal Symmetry Breaking States in Finite Size Systems
• Tunneling conductance in normal metal - high $T_C$ cuprate junctions in the presence of magnetic field
• Andreev Bound States in Superconducting Films and Confined Superfluid He-3
• Proximity Effect in Normal Metal - High Tc Superconductor Contacts
• Disorder-robust phase crystal in high-temperature superconductors stabilized by strong correlations
• Phase Crystals
• Josephson effect in point contacts between ''f-wave'' superconductors
• Breaking time-reversal and translational symmetry at edges of $d$-wave superconductors: microscopic theory and comparison with quasiclassical theory
• Josephson and spontaneous currents at the interface between two d-wave superconductors with transport current in the banks
• Spontaneous symmetry-breaking at surfaces of $d$-wave superconductors: influence of geometry and surface ruggedness
• Influence of diffuse surface scattering on the stability of superconducting phases with spontaneous surface current generated by Andreev bound states
• Paramagnetic effect in YBaCuO grain boundary junctions
• Spontaneous generation of fractional vortex-antivortex pairs at single edges of high-Tc superconductors
• Enhanced chiral edge currents and orbital magnetic moment in chiral $d$-wave superconductors from mesoscopic finite-size effects
• Impurity strength-temperature phase diagram with phase crystals and competing time-reversal symmetry breaking states in nodal $d$-wave superconductors
• Effect of Transparency on the D-wave Josephson Junction
• Vortex-like current states in Josephson ballistic point contacts
• Strengthened correlations near [110] edges of $d$-wave superconductors in the t-J model with the Gutzwiller approximation