Search results for " superconductivity"
showing 10 items of 319 documents
Anomalous current in diffusive ferromagnetic Josephson junctions
2017
We demonstrate that in diffusive superconductor/ferromagnet/superconductor (S/F/S) junctions a finite, anomalous Josephson current can flow even at zero phase difference between the S electrodes. The conditions for the observation of this effect are noncoplanar magnetization distribution and a broken magnetization inversion symmetry of the superconducting current. The latter symmetry is intrinsic for the widely used quasiclassical approximation and prevented previous works based on this approximation from obtaining the Josephson anomalous current. We show that this symmetry can be removed by introducing spin-dependent boundary conditions for the quasiclassical equations at the superconducti…
Electromagnetic response of LaO_0.94F_0.06FeAs: AC susceptibility and microwave surface resistance
2009
We discuss on the electromagnetic response of a polycrystalline sample of LaO_0.94F_0.06FeAs exposed to DC magnetic fields up to 10 kOe. The low- and high-frequency responses have been investigated by measuring the AC susceptibility at 100 kHz and the microwave surface resistance at 9.6 GHz. At low as well as high DC magnetic fields, the susceptibility strongly depends on the amplitude of the AC driving field, highlighting enhanced nonlinear effects. The field dependence of the AC susceptibility exhibits a magnetic hysteresis that can be justified considering the intragrain-field-penetration effects on the intergrain critical current density. The microwave surface resistance exhibits a cloc…
Slow magnetic fluctuations and superconductivity in fluorine-doped NdFeAsO
2015
Among the widely studied superconducting iron-pnictide compounds belonging to the Ln1111 family (with Ln a lanthanide), a systematic investigation of the crossover region between the superconducting and the antiferromagnetic phase for the Ln = Nd case has been missing. We fill this gap by focusing on the intermediate doping regime of NdFeAsO(1-x)F(x) by means of dc-magnetometry and muon-spin spectroscopy measurements. The long-range order we detect at low fluorine doping is replaced by short-range magnetic interactions at x = 0.08, where also superconductivity appears. In this case, longitudinal-field muon-spin spectroscopy experiments show clear evidence of slow magnetic fluctuations that …
Microwave surface impedance of proximity-coupled superconducting (Nb)/spin-glass (CuMn) bilayers
1998
The surface impedance of Nb/CuMn (superconducting/spin-glass) bilayers has been measured at 10 GHz with the parallel plate resonator technique to obtain information about the exotic behavior of the order parameter in superconducting/magnetic proximity systems. The data strongly differs from the superconducting/normal-metal case, showing the magnetic nature of the CuMn layer, which acts as a weak ferromagnet. The results are described in the framework of two models for the electrodynamics of superconducting/ferromagnetic (S/M) bilayers characterized by a proximity-coupling length scale which is independent of temperature.
Non-London electrodynamics in a multiband London model : anisotropy-induced nonlocalities and multiple magnetic field penetration lengths
2018
The London model describes strongly type-2 superconductors as massive vector field theories, where the magnetic field decays exponentially at the length scale of the London penetration length. This also holds for isotropic multi-band extensions, where the presence of multiple bands merely renormalises the London penetration length. We show that, by contrast, the magnetic properties of anisotropic multi-band London models are not this simple, and the anisotropy leads to the inter-band phase differences becoming coupled to the magnetic field. This results in the magnetic field in such systems having N+1 penetration lengths, where N is the number of field components or bands. That is, in a giv…
Moir\'e-enabled topological superconductivity
2020
The search for artificial topological superconductivity has been limited by the stringent conditions required for its emergence. As exemplified by the recent discoveries of various correlated electronic states in twisted van der Waals materials, moir\'e patterns can act as a powerful knob to create artificial electronic structures. Here, we demonstrate that a moir\'e pattern between a van der Waals superconductor and a monolayer ferromagnet creates a periodic potential modulation that enables the realization of a topological superconducting state that would not be accessible in the absence of the moir\'e. The magnetic moir\'e pattern gives rise to Yu-Shiba-Rusinov minibands and periodic mod…
Mean-field theory for superconductivity in twisted bilayer graphene
2018
Recent experiments show how a bilayer graphene twisted around a certain magic angle becomes superconducting as it is doped into a region with approximate flat bands. We investigate the mean-field $s$-wave superconducting state in such a system and show how the state evolves as the twist angle is tuned, and as a function of the doping level. We argue that part of the experimental findings could well be understood to result from an attractive electron--electron interaction mediated by electron--phonon coupling, but the flat-band nature of the excitation spectrum makes also superconductivity quite unusual. For example, as the flat-band states are highly localized around certain spots in the st…
Wide-Field Imaging of Superconductor Vortices with Electron Spins in Diamond
2018
Understanding the mechanisms behind high-$T_{c}$ Type-II superconductors (SC) is still an open task in condensed matter physics. One way to gain further insight into the microscopic mechanisms leading to superconductivity is to study the magnetic properties of the SC in detail, for example by studying the properties of vortices and their dynamics. In this work we describe a new method of wide-field imaging magnetometry using nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond to image vortices in an yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) thin film. We demonstrate quantitative determination of the magnetic field strength of the vortex stray field, the observation of vortex patterns for different cooling fi…
Spin-orbital polarization of Majorana edge states in oxides nanowires
2020
We investigate a paradigmatic case of topological superconductivity in a one-dimensional nanowire with $d-$orbitals and a strong interplay of spin-orbital degrees of freedom due to the competition of orbital Rashba interaction, atomic spin-orbit coupling, and structural distortions. We demonstrate that the resulting electronic structure exhibits an orbital dependent magnetic anisotropy which affects the topological phase diagram and the character of the Majorana bound states (MBSs). The inspection of the electronic component of the MBSs reveals that the spin-orbital polarization generally occurs along the direction of the applied Zeeeman magnetic field, and transverse to the magnetic and or…
Evidence of quantum phase slip effect in titanium nanowires
2012
Electron transport properties of titanium nanowires were experimentally studied. Below the effective diameter $\lesssim$ 50 nm all samples demonstrated a pronounced broadening of the $R(T)$ dependencies, which cannot be accounted for thermal flcutuations. An extensive microscopic and elemental analysis indicates the absence of structural or/and geometrical imperfection capable to broaden the the $R(T)$ transition to such an extent. We associate the effect with quantum flucutuations of the order parameter.