# Enhanced spin-triplet pairing in magnetic junctions with s-wave superconductors

## TL;DR

This paper predicts that simple magnetic junctions with s-wave superconductors can exhibit strong spin-triplet superconductivity due to interfacial spin-orbit coupling, leading to significant conductance magnetoanisotropy.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism where interfacial spin-orbit coupling enables near-perfect spin-triplet proximity effects in simple magnetic junctions.

## Key findings

- Enhanced spin-triplet proximity effect due to interfacial spin-orbit coupling.
- Order of magnitude increase in conductance magnetoanisotropy.
- Effective perfect transparency in magnetic junctions with small spin polarization.

## Abstract

A common path to superconducting spintronics, Majorana fermions, and topologically-protected quantum computing relies on spin-triplet superconductivity. While naturally occurring spin-triplet pairing is elusive and even common spin-triplet candidates, such as Sr$_2$RuO$_4$, support alternative explanations, proximity effects in heterostructures can overcome these limitations. It is expected that robust spin-triplet superconductivity in magnetic junctions should rely on highly spin-polarized magnets or complex magnetic multilayers. Instead, we predict that the interplay of interfacial spin-orbit coupling and the barrier strength in simple magnetic junctions, with only a small spin polarization and s-wave superconductors, can lead to nearly complete spin-triplet superconducting proximity effects. This peculiar behavior arises from an effective perfect transparency: interfacial spin-orbit coupling counteracts the native potential barrier for states of a given spin and wave vector. We show that the enhanced spin-triplet regime is characterized by a huge increase in conductance magnetoanisotropy, orders of magnitude larger than in the normal state.