Spontaneous Currents in Superconducting Systems with Strong Spin-Orbit Coupling

S Mironov (1) , Alexandre I. Buzdin (2)

1 Institute for Physics of Microstructures of the RAS
2 LOMA - Laboratoire Ondes et Matière d'Aquitaine

We show that Rashba spin orbit coupling at the interface between a superconductor and a ferromagnet should produce a spontaneous current in the atomic thickness region near the interface. This current is counterbalanced by the superconducting screening current flowing in the region of the width of the London penetration depth near the interface. Such a current carrying state creates a magnetic field near the superconductor surface, generates a stray magnetic field outside the sample edges, changes the slope of the temperature dependence of the critical field H c3 , and may generate the spontaneous Abrikosov vortices near the interface.

Domaines: Supraconductivité [cond-mat.supr-con]

S Mironov, Alexandre I. Buzdin. Spontaneous Currents in Superconducting Systems with Strong Spin-Orbit Coupling. Physical Review Letters, 2017, 118 (7), pp.077001. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.077001⟩. ⟨hal-01494654⟩