16 research outputs found
A spin triplet supercurrent through the half-metallic ferromagnet CrO2
In general, conventional superconductivity should not occur in a ferromagnet,
though it has been seen in iron under pressure. Moreover, theory predicts that
the current is always carried by pairs of electrons in a spin singlet state, so
conventional superconductivity decays very rapidly when in contact with a
ferromagnet, which normally prohibits the existence of singlet pairs. It has
been predicted that this rapid spatial decay would not occur when spin triplet
superconductivity could be induced in the ferromagnet. Here we report a
Josephson supercurrent through the strong ferromagnet CrO2, from which we infer
that it is a spin triplet supercurrent. Our experimental setup is different
from those envisaged in the earlier predictions, but we conclude that the
underlying physical explanation for our result is a conversion from spin
singlet to spin triplets at the interface. The supercurrent can be switched
with the direction of the magnetization, analogous to spin valve transistors,
and therefore could enable magnetization-controlled Josephson junctions.Comment: 14 pages, including 3 figure
Tuning Locality of Pair Coherence in Graphene-based Andreev Interferometers
We report on gate-tuned locality of superconductivity-induced phase-coherent magnetoconductance oscillations in a graphene-based Andreev interferometer, consisting of a T-shaped graphene bar in contact with a superconducting Al loop. The conductance oscillations arose from the flux change through the superconducting Al loop, with gate-dependent Fraunhofer-type modulation of the envelope. We confirm a transitional change in the character of the pair coherence, between local and nonlocal, in the same device as the effective length-to-width ratio of the device was modulated by tuning the pair-coherence length εT in the graphene layer.</p