First-principles calculations of spin-triplet andreev reflection spectra at half-metallic ferromagnet/superconductor interface

Combining the first-principles noncollinear calculations of scattering matrices with Andreev approximation, we investigated the spin-triplet Andreev reflection (AR) spectra for the interface between half-metallic ferromagnet Co$_{2}$MnSi and \emph{s}-wave BCS superconductor Al with and without interfacial roughness, where the orientations of magnetic moments near the interface are randomly distributed. The calculated results show that the AR spectra have peak structures near zero bias for the clean interface with relative weak magnetic disorder. With increasing the degree of interfacial roughness or magnetic disorder, these subgap peaks of conductance spectra will be washed out. The results also show that the value of subgap conductance spectrum can be raised significantly by the magnetic disorder. Finally, our calculations reveal that the long-range spin-triplet AR in Co$_{2}$MnSi/Al(001) interface can be enhanced by a small amount of interfacial roughness

The numerical operator method to the real time dynamics of currents through the nanostructures with different topologies

We present the numerical operator method designed for the real time dynamics of currents through nanostructures beyond the linear response regime. We apply this method to the transient and stationary currents through nanostructures with different topologies, e.g., the flakes of square and honeycomb lattices. We find a quasi-stationary stage with a life proportional to the flake size in the transient currents through the square flakes, but this quasi-stationary stage is destroyed in the presence of disorder. However, there is no quasi-stationary stage in the transient currents through the honeycomb flakes, showing that the transient current depends strongly upon the topologies of the nanostructures. We also study the stationary current by taking the limit of the current at long times. We find that the stationary current through a square flake increases smoothly as the voltage bias increasing. In contrast, we find a threshold voltage in the current-voltage curve through a honeycomb flake, indicating a gap at the Fermi energy of a honeycomb flake.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

First-principles calculations of current-induced spin-transfer torques in magnetic domain walls

Current-induced spin-transfer torques (STTs) have been studied in Fe, Co and Ni domain walls (DWs) by the method based on the first-principles noncollinear calculations of scattering wave functions expanded in the tight-binding linearized muffin-tin orbital (TB-LMTO) basis. The results show that the out-of-plane component of nonadiabatic STT in Fe DW has localized form, which is in contrast to the typical nonlocal oscillating nonadiabatic torques obtained in Co and Ni DWs. Meanwhile, the degree of nonadiabaticity in STT is also much greater for Fe DW. Further, our results demonstrate that compared to the well-known first-order nonadiabatic STT, the torque in the third-order spatial derivative of local spin can better describe the distribution of localized nonadiabatic STT in Fe DW. The dynamics of local spin driven by this third-order torques in Fe DW have been investigated by the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) equation. The calculated results show that with the same amplitude of STTs the DW velocity induced by this third-order term is about half of the wall speed for the case of the first-order nonadiabatic STT.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure