Proximity-induced triplet superconductivity in Rashba materials

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Rashba spin-orbit coupling in conductors can induce spin-triplet superconducting correlations when in proximity to an s-wave superconductor, revealing robust odd-frequency triplet pairing.

Contribution

It provides an exact theoretical analysis of proximity-induced triplet pairing in Rashba materials, extending beyond quasiclassical approximations.

Findings

Spin-triplet correlations are induced by spin-orbit coupling.

Induced triplet pairing includes a robust odd-frequency component.

Results are derived from exact Gor'kov equations.

Abstract

We study a proximity junction between a conventional s-wave superconductor and a conductor with Rashba spin-orbit coupling, with a specific focus on the spin structure of the induced pairing amplitude. We find that spin-triplet pairing correlations are induced by spin-orbit coupling in both one- and two-dimensional systems due to the lifted spin degeneracy. Additionally, this induced triplet pairing has a component with an odd frequency dependence that is robust to disorder. Our predictions are based on the solutions of the exact Gor'kov equations and are beyond the quasiclassical approximation.