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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Strong anomalous proximity effect from spin-singlet superconductors

Satoshi Ikegaya1,2, Jaechul Lee3, Andreas P. Schnyder1, and Yasuhiro Asano3

  • 1Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung, Heisenbergstrasse 1, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany
  • 2Department of Applied Physics, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8603, Japan
  • 3Department of Applied Physics, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-8628, Japan

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Phys. Rev. B 104, L020502 – Published 8 July, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.104.L020502

Abstract

The proximity effect from a spin-triplet px-wave superconductor to a dirty normal-metal has been shown to result in various unusual electromagnetic properties, reflecting a cooperative relation between topologically protected zero-energy quasiparticles and odd-frequency Cooper pairs. However, because of a lack of candidate materials for spin-triplet px-wave superconductors, observing this effect has been difficult. In this paper, we demonstrate that the anomalous proximity effect, which is essentially equivalent to that of a spin-triplet px-wave superconductor, can occur in a semiconductor/high-Tc cuprate superconductor hybrid device in which two potentials coexist: A spin-singlet d-wave pair potential and a spin-orbit coupling potential sustaining the persistent spin-helix state. As a result, we propose an alternative and promising route to observe the anomalous proximity effect related to the profound nature of topologically protected quasiparticles and odd-frequency Cooper pairs.

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Phys. Rev. B 104, L020502– Published 8 July, 2021
  • Received 9 April 2021
  • Revised 17 June 2021
  • Accepted 25 June 2021
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by the Max Planck Society.

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