Abstract.
Along the lines of Blonder, Tinkham and Klapwijk, we investigate the charge transport through ferromagnet/two-dimensional electronic gas/d-wave superconductor (F/2DEG/S) junctions in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit (SO) coupling and focus our attention on the interplay between spin polarization and spin precession. At zero spin polarization, the spin-mixing scattering resulted from Rashba SO coupling decreases the zero-bias conductance peak. Under spin polarization, spin precession introduces novel Andreev reflection, which competes with the effect of spin-mixing scattering. If the F layer is a half metal, the later effect is overwhelmed by that of novel Andreev reflection. As a result, the zero-bias conductance dip caused by spin polarization is enhanced, and at strong Rashba SO coupling, a split zero-bias peak is found in the gap. In an intermediate region where the two effects are comparable with each other, the zero-bias conductance shows a reentrant behavior as a function of Rashba SO coupling.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
A.F. Andreev, Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 46, 1823 (1964) [Sov. Phys. JETP 19, 1228 (1964)]
M.J.M. De Jong, C.W.J. Beenakker, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 1657 (1995)
S. Kashiwaya, Y. Tanaka, N. Yoshida, M.R. Beaslay, Phys. Rev. B 60, 3572 (1999)
I. Zutic, O.T. Valls, Phys. Rev. B 61, 1555 (2000)
N. Stefanakis, Phys. Rev. B 64, 224502 (2001)
T. Hirai, Y. Tanaka, N. Yoshida, Y. Asano, J. Inoue, S. Kashiwaya, Phys. Rev. B 67, 174501 (2003)
S.K. Upadhyay, A. Palanisami, R.N. Louie, R.A. Buhrman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 3247 (1998)
R.J. Soulen et al., Science 282, 85 (1998)
Z.P. Niu, D.Y. Xing, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 057005 (2007)
F.S. Bergeret, A.F. Volkov, K.B. Efetov, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 4096 (2001)
G.A. Prinz, Science 282, 1660 (1998)
Semiconductor Spintronics and Quantum Computation, edited by D. Awschalom, D. Loss, N. Samarth (Springer, Berlin, 2002)
I. Zutic, J. Fabian, S. Das Sarma, Rev. Mod. Phys. 76, 323 (2004)
M.I. D'yakonov, V.I. Perel, JETP Lett. 13, 467 (1971)
J.E. Hirsch, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 1834 (1999)
S. Murakami, N. Nagaosa, S.-C. Zhang, Science 301, 1348 (2003); S. Murakami, N. Nagaosa, S.-C. Zhang, Phys. Rev. B 69, 235206 (2004)
J. Sinova, D. Culcer, Q. Niu, N.A. Sinitsyn, T. Jungwirth, A.H. MacDonald, Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 126603 (2004)
Y.K. Kato, R.C. Myers, A.C. Gossard, D.D. Awschalom, Science 306, 1910 (2004)
J. Wunderlich, B. Kaestner, J. Sinova, T. Jungwirth, Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 047204 (2005)
L. Sheng, D.N. Sheng, C.S. Ting, Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 016602 (2005)
B.K. Nikolic, S. Souma, L.P. Zarbo, J. Sinova, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 046601 (2005)
S.-Q. Shen, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 187203 (2005)
S. Souma, B.K. Nikolic, Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 106602 (2005)
E.I. Rashba, Fiz. Tverd. Tela (Leningrad) 2, 1224 (1960) [Sov. Phys. Solid State 2, 1109 (1960)]
T. Yokoyama, Y. Tanaka, J. Inoue Phys. Rev. B 74, 035318 (2006)
G.E. Blonder, M. Tinkham, T.M. Klapwijk, Phys. Rev. B 25, 4515 (1982)
C.R. Hu, Phys. Rev. Lett. 72, 1526 (1994)
Y. Tanaka, S. Kashiwaya, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 3451 (1995)
S. Kashiwaya, Y. Tanaka, Rep. Prog. Phys. 63, 1641 (2000)
T. Löfwander, V. Shumeiko, G. Wendin, Supercond. Sci. Technol. 14, R53 (2001).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, ZY. Charge transport through ferromagnet/two-dimensional electron gas/d-wave superconductor junctions with Rashba spin-orbit coupling. Eur. Phys. J. B 63, 65–69 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2008-00220-0
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2008-00220-0