Magnetic impurities in a superconductor: Effect of domain walls and interference

P. D. Sacramento; V. K. Dugaev; V. R. Vieira

doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.76.014512

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Magnetic impurities in a superconductor: Effect of domain walls and interference

P. D. Sacramento, V. K. Dugaev, V. R. Vieira

DOI 10.1103/PhysRevB.76.014512 · Physical Review B

T1

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Abstract

We consider the effect of magnetic impurities, modeled by classical spins, in a conventional superconductor. We study their effect on the quasiparticles, specifically on the spin density and local density of states. As previously emphasized, the impurities induce multiple scatterings of the quasiparticle wave functions, leading to complex interference phenomena. Also, the impurities induce quantum phase transitions in the many-body system. Previous authors studied the effect of either a small number of impurities (from 1 to 3) or a finite concentration of impurities, typically in a disordered distribution. In this work, we assume a regular set of spins distributed inside the superconductor in such a way that the spins are oriented, forming different types of domain walls, assumed stable. This situation may be particularly interesting in the context of spin transfer due to polarized currents traversing the material.

Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval

Formula	Reported Tc (K)	Pressure (GPa)	Type
UPd2Al3 Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula.	2	Pressure not reported	unknown
UNi2Al3 Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula.	1.2	Pressure not reported	unknown