Supercurrent-induced long-range triplet correlations and controllable Josephson effect in superconductor/ferromagnet hybrids with extrinsic SOC

Abstract

We predict that long-range triplet correlations (LRTC) can be generated and manipulated by supercurrent in superconductor/ferromagnet (S/F) hybrids with extrinsic impurity spin-orbit coupling (SOC). The structure of the supercurrent-induced LRTC is studied both for S/F bilayers and S/F/S Josephson junctions. We demonstrate that in S/F/S junctions, where the Josephson coupling is realized via the supercurrent-induced LRTC, the ground state phase can be switched between 0 and π. The switching is controlled by relative directions of the condensate momentum in superconducting leads, thus realizing a new physical principle of the 0 − π shifter.