Josephson current in graphene: the role of unconventional pairing symmetries

TL;DR

This paper explores how unconventional superconducting pairing symmetries affect the Josephson current in graphene-based junctions, revealing exotic states and the importance of self-consistent numerical methods for anisotropic pairings.

Contribution

It extends the analysis of Josephson effects in graphene by including anisotropic pairing symmetries and comparing analytical and numerical solutions.

Findings

Weakly-damped oscillatory Josephson current in highly doped graphene

Agreement between analytical and numerical results for s-wave pairing

Deviation between methods for anisotropic p-wave pairing near Dirac points

Abstract

We investigate the Josephson current in a graphene superconductor/normal/superconductor junction, where superconductivity is induced by means of the proximity effect from external contacts. We take into account the possibility of anisotropic pairing by also including singlet nearest-neighbor interactions, and investigate how the transport properties are affected by the symmetry of the superconducting order parameter. This corresponds to an extension of the usual on-site interaction assumption, which yields an isotropic s-wave order parameter near the Dirac points. Here, we employ a full numerical solution as well as an analytical treatment, and show how the proximity effect may induce exotic types of superconducting states near the Dirac points, e.g. $p_x$- and $p_y$-wave pairing or a combination of s-wave and $p+\i p$-wave pairing. We find that the Josephson current exhibits a weakly-damped, oscillatory dependence on the length of the junction when the graphene sheet is strongly doped. The analytical and numerical treatments are found to agree well with each other in the s-wave case when calculating the critical current and current-phase relationship. For the scenarios with anisotropic superconducting pairing, there is a deviation between the two treatments, especially for the effective $p_x$-wave order parameter near the Dirac cones which features zero-energy states at the interfaces. This indicates that a numerical, self-consistent approach becomes necessary when treating anisotropic superconducting pairing in graphene.