Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Pugach, N. G.
• Safonchik, M.
• Champel, T.
• Zhitomirsky, M. E.
• Lähderanta, E.
• Eschrig, M.
• Lacroix, C.

Titel

Superconducting spin valves controlled by spiral re-orientation in B20-family magnets

Ist Teil von

• Applied physics letters, 2017-10, Vol.111 (16)

Ort / Verlag

Melville: American Institute of Physics

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

AIP Journals Complete

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• We propose a superconducting spin-triplet valve, which consists of a superconductor and an itinerant magnetic material, with the magnet showing an intrinsic non-collinear order characterized by a wave vector that may be aligned in a few equivalent preferred directions under the control of a weak external magnetic field. Re-orienting the spiral direction allows one to controllably modify long-range spin-triplet superconducting correlations, leading to spin-valve switching behavior. Our results indicate that the spin-valve effect may be noticeable. This bilayer may be used as a magnetic memory element for cryogenic nanoelectronics. It has the following advantages in comparison to superconducting spin valves proposed previously: (i) it contains only one magnetic layer, which may be more easily fabricated and controlled; (ii) its ground states are separated by a potential barrier, which solves the “half-select” problem of the addressed switch of memory elements.