Phase separation and proximity effects in itinerant ferromagnet/superconductor heterostructures

C. Martens; A. Bill; G. Seibold

doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.98.174513

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Phase separation and proximity effects in itinerant ferromagnet/superconductor heterostructures

C. Martens, A. Bill, G. Seibold

DOI 10.1103/PhysRevB.98.174513 · Physical Review B

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Abstract

Heterostructures made of itinerant ferromagnets and superconductors are studied. In contrast to most previous models, ferromagnetism is not enforced by an effective Zeeman field but induced in a correlated single-band model (CSBM) that displays itinerant ferromagnetism as a mean-field ground state. In this model superconductivity and magnetism are both calculated self-consistently. We calculate the magnitude of the magnetization, the superconducting correlations, and variations of the charge density self-consistently for a superconducting-magnetic bilayer by solving the Bogoliubov–de Gennes equations on a two-dimensional lattice. We determine all three quantities as a function of the Coulomb repulsion U and the ferromagnetic exchange interaction J. The CSBM displays a variety of features not present in the Zeeman exchange model—for example, the occurrence of electronic phase separation and the competition of magnetic and superconducting orders far away from the interface.