Superconductor/Ferromagnet Heterostructures: A Platform for Superconducting Spintronics and Quantum Computation

TL;DR

This paper reviews how superconductor/ferromagnet heterostructures exhibit unique phenomena like spin-triplet superconductivity and topological states, making them promising for spintronics and quantum computing applications.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of recent progress in SC/FM heterostructures, highlighting their potential in superconducting spintronics and topological quantum computation.

Findings

Long-range spin transport via spin-triplet Cooper pairs

Implementation of {1} Josephson junctions for qubits

Experimental signatures of Majorana states in heterostructures

Abstract

The interplay between superconductivity and ferromagnetism in the superconductor/ferromagnet (SC/FM) heterostructures generates many interesting physical phenomena, including spin-triplet superconductivity, superconducting order parameter oscillation, and topological superconductivity. The unique physical properties make the SC/FM heterostructures as promising platforms for future superconducting spintronics and quantum computation applications. In this article, we review important research progress of SC/FM heterostructures from superconducting spintronics to quantum computation, and it is organized as follows. Firstly, we discuss the progress of spin current carriers in SC/FM heterostructures including Bogoliubov quasiparticles, superconducting vortex, and spin-triplet Cooper pairs which might be used for long-range spin transport. Then, we will describe the {\pi} Josephson junctions and its application for constructing {\pi} qubits. Finally, we will briefly review experimental signatures of Majorana states in the SC/FM heterostructures and the theoretically proposed manipulation, which could be useful to realize fault-tolerant topological quantum computing.