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Spin-polarized supercurrents for spintronics: a review of current progress
During the past 15 years a new field has emerged, which combines
superconductivity and spintronics, with the goal to pave a way for new types of
devices for applications combining the virtues of both by offering the
possibility of long-range spin-polarized supercurrents. Such supercurrents
constitute a fruitful basis for the study of fundamental physics as they
combine macroscopic quantum coherence with microscopic exchange interactions,
spin selectivity, and spin transport. This report follows recent developments
in the controlled creation of long-range equal-spin triplet supercurrents in
ferromagnets and its contribution to spintronics. The mutual proximity-induced
modification of order in superconductor-ferromagnet hybrid structures
introduces in a natural way such evasive phenomena as triplet
superconductivity, odd-frequency pairing, Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov
pairing, long-range equal-spin supercurrents, -Josephson junctions, as
well as long-range magnetic proximity effects. All these effects were rather
exotic before 2000, when improvements in nanofabrication and materials control
allowed for a new quality of hybrid structures. Guided by pioneering
theoretical studies, experimental progress evolved rapidly, and since 2010
triplet supercurrents are routinely produced and observed. We have entered a
new stage of studying new phases of matter previously out of our reach, and of
merging the hitherto disparate fields of superconductivity and spintronics to a
new research direction: super-spintronics.Comment: 95 pages, 23 Figures; published version with minor typos corrected
and few references adde