Enhancing triplet superconductivity by the proximity to a singlet superconductor in oxide heterostructures

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to enhance triplet superconductivity in oxide heterostructures by leveraging strong spin-orbit coupling to convert singlet pairs into triplet pairs, leading to increased triplet superconductivity.

Contribution

It introduces a novel heterostructure design that coherently couples singlet and triplet superconductors via spin-orbit coupling, enhancing triplet superconductivity.

Findings

Triplet superconductivity is significantly enhanced in the proposed heterostructure.

Conversion between singlet and triplet pairs is facilitated by intraionic spin-orbit coupling.

Enhanced triplet superconductivity persists above the native critical temperature.

Abstract

We show how in principle a coherent coupling between two superconductors of opposite parity can be realized in a three-layer oxide heterostructure. Due to strong intraionic spin-orbit coupling in the middle layer, singlet Cooper pairs are converted into triplet ones and vice versa. This results in a large enhancement of the triplet superconductivity, persisting well above the native triplet critical temperature.