Spin injection from a normal metal into a mesoscopic superconductor

M. J. Wolf; F. Hübler; S. Kolenda; H. v. Löhneysen; D. Beckmann

doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.87.024517

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Spin injection from a normal metal into a mesoscopic superconductor

M. J. Wolf, F. Hübler, S. Kolenda, H. v. Löhneysen, D. Beckmann

DOI 10.1103/PhysRevB.87.024517 · Physical Review B

T1

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Abstract

We report on nonlocal transport in superconductor hybrid structures, with ferromagnetic as well as normal-metal tunnel junctions attached to the superconductor. In the presence of a strong Zeeman splitting of the density of states, both charge and spin imbalance is injected into the superconductor. While previous experiments demonstrated spin injection from ferromagnetic electrodes, we show that spin imbalance is also created for normal-metal injector contacts. Using the combination of ferromagnetic and normal-metal detectors allows us to directly discriminate between charge and spin injection, and demonstrate a complete separation of charge and spin imbalance. The relaxation length of the spin imbalance is of the order of several μm and is found to increase with a magnetic field, but is independent of temperature. We further discuss possible relaxation mechanisms for the explanation of the spin relaxation length.

Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval

Formula	Reported Tc (K)	Pressure (GPa)	Type
Al Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula.	1.6	Pressure not reported	unknown
Al Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula.	1.5	Pressure not reported	unknown