Quasiclassical Theory of Spin Imbalance in a Normal Metal-Superconductor Heterostructure with a Spin-Active Interface
Paper in proceeding, 2014

Non-equilibrium phenomena in superconductors have attracted much attention since the first experiments on charge imbalance in the early 1970's. Nowadays a new promising line of research lies at an intersection between superconductivity and spintronics. Here we develop a quasiclassical theory of a single junction between a normal metal and a superconductor with a spin-active interface at finite bias voltages. Due to spin-mixing and spin-filtering effects of the interface a non-equilibrium magnetization (or spin imbalance) is induced at the superconducting side of the junction, which relaxes to zero in the bulk. A peculiar feature of the system is the presence of interface-induced Andreev bound states, which influence the magnitude and the decay length of spin imbalance. Recent experiments on spin and charge density separation in superconducting wires required external magnetic field for observing a spin signal via non-local measurements. Here, we propose an alternative way to observe spin imbalance without applying magnetic field.

Spin imbalance

Andreev reflection

Andreev bound states

Hybrid structure

Author

Oleksii Shevtsov

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Applied Quantum Physics

Tomas Löfwander

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Applied Quantum Physics

Journal of Physics: Conference Series

17426588 (ISSN) 17426596 (eISSN)

Vol. 568 2 022044- 022044

Subject Categories

Condensed Matter Physics

DOI

10.1088/1742-6596/568/2/022044

More information

Created

10/7/2017