Superconducting Proximity Effect through a Magnetic Domain Wall

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a magnetic domain wall in a ferromagnet affects the superconducting proximity effect in SFS heterostructures, revealing the influence of domain wall parameters on the local density of states.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical method to analyze the full spatially dependent spin structure of the proximity effect in the presence of a magnetic domain wall.

Findings

Density of states is sensitive to domain wall parameters.

Triplet-pairing correlations are generated near the domain wall.

Theoretical tool effectively captures spatially dependent spin structure.

Abstract

We study the superconducting proximity effect in a superconductor-ferromagnet-superconductor (SFS) heterostructure, containing a domain wall in the ferromagnetic region. For the ferromagnet we assume an alloy with an exchange splitting of the conduction bands comparable to the superconducting gaps. We calculate the modification of the density of states in the center of the domain wall as a result of the proximity effect. We show that the density of states is sensitive to domain wall parameters due to triplet-pairing correlations created in vicinity of the domain wall. We present a theoretical tool which in a very effective way enables retaining the full spatially dependent spin-space structure of the problem.