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Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 206601 (2007) [4 pages]

Dynamics of Spin Transport in Voltage-Biased Josephson Junctions

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Erhai Zhao and J. A. Sauls
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA

Received 15 March 2006; published 16 May 2007

We investigate spin transport in voltage-biased spin-active Josephson junctions. The interplay of spin filtering, spin mixing, and multiple Andreev reflection leads to nonlinear voltage dependence of the dc and ac spin current. We compute the voltage characteristics of the spin current (IS) for superconductor-ferromagnet-superconductor Josephson junctions. The subharmonic gap structure of IS(V) is shown to be sensitive to the degree of spin mixing generated by the ferromagnetic interface, and exhibits a pronounced even-odd effect associated with spin transport during multiple Andreev reflection processes. For strong spin mixing both the magnitude and the direction of the dc spin current can be sensitively controlled by the bias voltage.

© 2007 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.206601
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.206601
PACS:
72.25.−b, 72.25.Mk, 74.50.+r