Banerjee_PhysRevB.102.020405.pdf (1009.09 kB)
Download fileSuperconductivity-induced change in magnetic anisotropy in epitaxial ferromagnet-superconductor hybrids with spin-orbit interaction
journal contribution
posted on 2020-07-16, 10:16 authored by César González-Ruano, Lina G Johnsen, Diego Caso, Coriolan Tiusan, Michel Hehn, Niladri Banerjee, Jacob Linder, Farkhad G AlievThe interaction between superconductivity and ferromagnetism in thin film superconductor/ferromagnet
heterostructures is usually reflected by a change in superconductivity of the S layer set by the magnetic state
of the F layers. Here we report the converse effect: transformation of the magnetocrystalline anisotropy of a
single Fe(001) layer, and thus its preferred magnetization orientation, driven by the superconductivity of an
underlying V layer through a spin-orbit coupled MgO interface. We attribute this to an additional contribution
to the free energy of the ferromagnet arising from the controlled generation of triplet Cooper pairs, which
depends on the relative angle between the exchange field of the ferromagnet and the spin-orbit field. This is
fundamentally different from the commonly observed magnetic domain modification by Meissner screening
or domain wall-vortex interaction, and it offers the ability to fundamentally tune magnetic anisotropies using
superconductivity—a key step in designing future cryogenic magnetic memories.
Funding
Spin-orbit coupling-dirven superconducting spintronics : EP/S016430/1
History
School
- Science
Department
- Physics
Published in
Physical Review BVolume
102Issue
2Pages
020405Publisher
American Physical Society (APS)Version
- VoR (Version of Record)
Rights holder
© American Physical SocietyPublisher statement
This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review B and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.102.020405Acceptance date
2020-07-01Publication date
2020-07-15Copyright date
2020ISSN
2469-9950eISSN
2469-9969Publisher version
Language
- en