Spontaneous Spin Polarized Currents in Superconductor-Ferromagnetic Metal Heterostructures

Abstract

We study a simple microscopic model for thin, ferromagnetic, metallic layers on semi-infinite bulk superconductor. We find that for certain values of the exchange spliting, on the ferromagnetic side, the ground states of such structures feature spontaneously induced spin polarized currents. Using a mean-field theory, which is selfconsistent with respect to the pairing amplitude $\chi$, spin polarization $\vec{m}$ and the spontaneous current ${\vec{j}}_s$, we show that not only there are Andreev bound states in the ferromagnet but when their energies $E_n$ are near zero they support spontaneous currents parallel to the ferromagnetic-superconducting interface. Moreover, we demonstrate that the spin-polarization of these currents depends sensitively on the band filling.

4 pages, 5 Postscript figures (included)

References in corpus (3)

• Andreev bound states in high-$T_c$ superconducting junctions
• Proximity effects at ferromagnet-superconductor interfaces
• $\pi -0$ Transition in Superconductor-Ferromagnetic-Superconductor Junctions

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