Spin-triplet superconductivity is rich in physics compared to its counterpart spin-singlet superconductivity due to orbital and spin degrees of freedom. Spin-triplet superconductivity can be generated at the interface between a ferromagnet (FM) and a spin-singlet superconductor (SSC). Mainly, two ingredients are required at SSC/FM interface to emerge such spin-triplet correlations; spin-mixing and spin-rotation. A complicated magnetic inhomogeneity such as ferromagnetic domain-wall or non-collinear magnetization can provide the required spin-rotation. It is rather difficult to control the magnetic inhomogeneity. On the other hand, the use of spin-singlet superconductor may loss the spin-degree of freedom. These issues can be solved by using a spin-triplet superconductor (TSC) rather than a SSC. Theoretically, it has been predicted that the proximity effect at TSC/FM can be controlled by the relative orientations between the magnetization in the FM and the Cooper pair spin in TSC. In this seminar, I shall discuss the emergence of spin-triplet proximity effect at SSC/FM and TSC/FM junctions, with and without complex magnetic inhomogeneity, respectively. Recently, we first time demonstrated the penetration of spin-triplet correlations into a SrRuO3 ferromagnet out of Sr2RuO4 spin-triplet superconductor with atomically smooth interface. These heterostructures would stimulate the research work towards a new field of research that would be called Super-spintronics.
M. S. Anwar et al., APEX 8, 015502 (2015)
M. S. Anwar et al., arXiv 1603.00971 (2016).
Dr. M. S. Anwar did his Master and M.Phil in Physics at University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan. He received his PhD degree in 2011 from Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, Leiden University, The Netherlands under the supervision of Prof. Jan Aarts. Afterwards, he moved to Kyoto University as a Researcher to work with Prof. Yoshiteru Maeno. In 2014, he won the JSPS fellowship to continue his work at Kyoto University. His work is focused on spin-triplet superconductivity and novel proximity effects at the superconductor/ferromagnet interfaces to initiate a new field of research so called Super-spintronics.