Spin Polarized Current in the Ground State of Superconductor - Ferromagnet - Insulator Trilayers

We study the ground state properties of a superconductor - ferromagnet - insulator trilayer on the basis of a Hubbard Model featuring exchange splitting in the ferromagnet and electron - electron attraction in the superconductor. We solve the spin - polarized Hartree - Fock - Gorkov equations together with the Maxwell's equation (Ampere's law) fully self-consistently. For certain values of the exchange splitting we find that a spontaneous spin polarized current is generated in the ground state and is intimately related to Andreev bound states at the Fermi level. Moreover, the polarization of the current strongly depends on the band filling.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figure

Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov-like state in Ferromagnet-Superconductor Proximity System

We discuss some properties of the ferromagnet-superconductor proximity system. In particular, the emphasis is put on the physics of the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) like state. In addition to Andreev reflections it features a number of unusual thermodynamic and transport properties, like: oscillatory behavior of the pairing amplitude, density of states and superconducting transition temperature as a function of the ferromagnet thickness. Surprisingly, under certain conditions spontaneous spin polarized current is generated in the ground state of such a system. We provide some informations regarding experimental observations of this exotic state.Comment: Talk given at Advanced Research Workshop on ''Physics of Spin in Solids: Materials, Methods & Applications'', Baku (October 2003

Spontaneous currents in a ferromagnet - normal metal - superconductor trilayer

We discuss the ground state properties of the system composed of a normal metal sandwiched between ferromagnet and superconductor within a tight binding Hubbard model. We have solved the spin-polarized Hartree-Fock-Gorkov equations together with the Maxwell's equation (Ampere's law) and found a proximity induced Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) state in this system. Here we show that the inclusion of the normal metal layer in between those subsystems does not necessarily lead to the suppression of the FFLO phase. Moreover, we have found that depending on the thickness of the normal metal slab the system can be switched periodically between the state with the spontaneous current flowing to that one with no current. All these effects can be explained in terms of the Andreev bound states formed in such structures.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Gap Nodes and Time Reversal Symmetry Breaking in Strontium Ruthenate

We study the superconducting state of Sr$_2$RuO$_4$ on the bases of a phenomenological but orbital specific description of the electron-electron attraction and a realistic quantitative account of the electronic structure in the normal state. We found that a simple model which features both `in plane' and `out of plane' coupling with strengths $U_{\parallel}=40$meV and $U_{\perp}=48$meV respectively reproduced the experimentally observed power law behaviour of the low temperature specific heat $C_v(T)$, superfluid density $n_s(T)$ and thermal conductivity in quantitative detail. Moreover, it predicts that the quasi-particle spectrum on the $\gamma$ -sheet is fully gaped and the corresponding order parameter breaks the time reversal symmetry. We have also investigated the stability of this model to inclusion of further interaction constants in particular %those which describe `proximity coupling' between orbitals contributing to the $\gamma$ sheet of the Fermi surface and the $\alpha$ and $\beta$ sheets. We found that the predictions of the model are robust under such changes. Finally, we have incorporated a description of weak disorder into the model and explored some of its consequences. For example we demonstrated that the disorder has a more significant effect on the $f$-wave component of the order parameter than on the p-wave one.Comment: EPJ B submitte

Critical current of a Josephson junction containing a conical magnet

We calculate the critical current of a superconductor/ferromagnetic/superconductor (S/FM/S) Josephson junction in which the FM layer has a conical magnetic structure composed of an in-plane rotating antiferromagnetic phase and an out-of-plane ferromagnetic component. In view of the realistic electronic properties and magnetic structures that can be formed when conical magnets such as Ho are grown with a polycrystalline structure in thin-film form by methods such as direct current sputtering and evaporation, we have modeled this situation in the dirty limit with a large magnetic coherence length ($\xi_f$). This means that the electron mean free path is much smaller than the normalized spiral length $\lambda/2\pi$ which in turn is much smaller than $\xi_f$ (with $\lambda$ as the length a complete spiral makes along the growth direction of the FM). In this physically reasonable limit we have employed the linearized Usadel equations: we find that the triplet correlations are short ranged and manifested in the critical current as a rapid oscillation on the scale of $\lambda/2\pi$. These rapid oscillations in the critical current are superimposed on a slower oscillation which is related to the singlet correlations. Both oscillations decay on the scale of $\xi_f$. We derive an analytical solution and also describe a computational method for obtaining the critical current as a function of the conical magnetic layer thickness.Comment: Extended version of the published paper. Additional information about the computational method is included in the appendi