Superconducting spintronics

The ambition of superconducting spintronics is to integrate magnetic and superconducting elements in a unique device that combines permanent storage and low power logic characteristics. The new opportunities that superconductivity offers to spintronics were realised only quite recently. Instead, conventional superconductivity and magnetism were long believed to be mutually exclusive since in s-wave superconductors, Cooper pairs are in a singlet state and are therefore inadequate for carrying spin-information and, vice versa, magnetic exchange fields have a disruptive effect on superconductors. Recent advances in both experiment and theory are now showing that ferromagnetism and superconductivity can co-operate and give rise to new physics and enhanced spintronic device functionalities. In our group we are interested in studying the interplay between magnetism and superconductivity in proximity structures by applying a range of different experimental techniques from transport studies to microwave resonance techniques to pump-probe and THz spectroscopy techniques.

This research is funded by: