Proximity Induced Non-collinear Magnetic States in Planar Superconductor/Ferromagnet Hybrids

TL;DR

This paper investigates how proximity effects in superconductor/ferromagnet hybrids induce nonlinear interactions leading to non-collinear magnetic states, which are important for developing superconducting spintronics devices.

Contribution

It introduces a nonlinear coupling mechanism explaining the formation of non-collinear magnetic states in S/F hybrids due to proximity effects.

Findings

Proximity effects cause nonlinear interactions between magnetic moments.

Non-collinear magnetic states can spontaneously form in these systems.

Implications for designing superconducting spintronics devices.

Abstract

The proximity induced superconducting (S) correlations in ferromagnetic (F) layers of planar S/F hybrids are shown to be responsible for the appearance of a nonlinear interaction between the magnetic moments of the F layers. This interaction originates from the combined influence of the orbital and exchange phenomena and can result in the spontaneous formation of non-collinear magnetic states in these systems. The proposed nonlinear coupling mechanism and resulting changes of magnetic textures are crucial for the design of the superconducting spintronics devices exploiting the long-range spin triplet proximity effect.