Interplay of Magnetic and Superconducting Proximity Effects in FSF Trilayers

TL;DR

This paper provides a theoretical analysis of how magnetic and superconducting properties interact in diffusive FSF trilayers, highlighting the role of triplet correlations and proposing a magnetic torque measurement as a probe.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive self-consistent model for FSF trilayers considering arbitrary conditions and suggests a novel experimental method to detect triplet correlations.

Findings

Triplet superconducting correlations induce spin magnetization throughout the trilayer.

The model accounts for arbitrary temperature, interface transparency, and exchange field orientations.

Magnetic torque can serve as an effective probe for triplet correlations.

Abstract

We present theoretical results on the interplay of magnetic and superconducting orders in diffusive ferromagnet-superconductor-ferromagnet trilayers. The induced triplet superconducting correlations throughout the trilayer lead to an induced spin magnetization. We include self-consistency of the order parameter in the superconducting layer at arbitrary temperatures, arbitrary interface transparency, and any relative orientation of the exchange fields in the two ferromagnets. We propose to use the torque on the trilayer in an external magnetic field as a probe of the presence of triplet correlations in the superconducting phase.