Metastable π Junction between an s±-Wave and an s-Wave Superconductor
- Creators
- Berg, E.
- Lindner, N. H.
- Pereg-Barnea, T.
Abstract
We examine a contact between a superconductor whose order parameter changes sign across the Brillioun zone, and an ordinary, uniform-sign superconductor. Within a Ginzburg-Landau-type model, we find that if the barrier between the two superconductors is not too high, the frustration of the Josephson coupling between different portions of the Fermi surface across the contact can lead to surprising consequences. These include time-reversal symmetry breaking at the interface and unusual energy-phase relations with multiple local minima. We propose this mechanism as a possible explanation for the half-integer flux quantum transitions in composite niobium-iron pnictide superconducting loops, which were discovered in recent experiments [C.-T. Chen et al., Nature Phys. 6, 260 (2010).].
Additional Information
© 2011 American Physical Society. Received 6 February 2011; published 7 April 2011. The authors thank C. Hicks, S. Kivelson, D. Podolsky, S. Raghu, and D. Scalapino for useful discussions. We are particularly grateful to C.-T. Chen for sharing her unpublished data with us. E. B. was supported by the NSF under Grants DMR-0705472 and DMR-0757145, N. H. L. was supported by the Rothschild Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and T. P. B. was supported by the Research Corporation Cottrell Scholars Award, and DARPA. This research was supported in part by the NSF under Grant PHY05-51164. E.B. and N. H. L. thank the Aspen Center for Physics, where part of this work was done.Attached Files
Published - Berg2011p13637Phys_Rev_Lett.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 23530
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20110503-103750008
- DMR-0705472
- NSF
- DMR-0757145
- NSF
- PHY05-51164
- NSF
- Rothschild Foundation
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Research Corporation Cottrell Scholars Award
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
- Created
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2011-06-28Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field