Manipulating Superconductivity in Superconductor/Ferromagnet Hybrid Nanostructures

In this paper, we have simulated a hybrid structure consisting of a conventional BCS superconductor placed in proximity with a ferromagnet possessing intrinsic spin–orbit coupling (due to crystal mismatch at the interface) to study the effect of spin–orbit interaction on density of states near Fermi energy and the critical temperature. We report that the relationship between the in-plane and out-of-plane magnetic exchange fields (inside the ferromagnet) and the superconducting critical temperature reveals that a single homogenous ferromagnet possessing intrinsic spin–orbit coupling regulates the existence of triplets. We also report that inclusion of spin–orbit coupling in the hybrid structure manifests itself in the form of an energy gap in the density of states in the vicinity of Fermi energy which is attributed to the spin 1 triplets. Our research shows that spin–orbit coupling actively controls the triplets, which is a crucial step in new superconducting spintronic devices being made.