Interference phenomena and long-range proximity effect in clean superconductor-ferromagnet systems

We study peculiarities of the proximity effect in clean superconductor-ferromagnet structures caused by either the spatial or momentum dependence of the exchange field. Even a small modulation of the exchange field along the quasiparticle trajectories is shown to provide a long-range contribution to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2012-12, Vol.109 (23), p.237006-237006, Article 237006
Main Authors: Mel'nikov, A S, Samokhvalov, A V, Kuznetsova, S M, Buzdin, A I
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Condensed Matter
Physics
Superconductivity
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Summary:We study peculiarities of the proximity effect in clean superconductor-ferromagnet structures caused by either the spatial or momentum dependence of the exchange field. Even a small modulation of the exchange field along the quasiparticle trajectories is shown to provide a long-range contribution to the supercurrent due to the specific interference of particle- and holelike wave functions. The momentum dependence of the exchange field caused by the spin-orbit interaction results in long-range superconducting correlations even in the absence of a ferromagnetic domain structure and can explain recent experiments on ferromagnetic nanowires.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.237006