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Interference phenomena in clean Josephson junctions with ferromagnetic bilayers: Spin-triplet correlations and resonances

We study the Josephson effect in planar SF1F2S junctions that consist of conventional s-wave superconductors (S) connected by two metallic monodomain ferromagnets (Fand F2) with an arbitrary transparency of interfaces. We solve the scattering problem in the clean limit based on the Bogoliubov–de Gennes equation for both spin-singlet and odd in frequency spin-triplet pairing correlations. We calculate numerically the Josephson current-phase relation I(ϕ). While the first harmonic of I(ϕ) is…

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Experimental and theoretical study of field-dependent spin splitting at ferromagnetic insulator–superconductor interfaces

We present a combined experimental and theoretical work that investigates the magnetic proximity effect at a ferromagnetic insulator–superconductor (FI–S) interface. The calculations are based on the boundary condition for diffusive quasiclassical Green’s functions, which accounts for arbitrarily strong spin-dependent effects and spin mixing angles. The resulting phase diagram shows a transition from a first-order to a second-order phase transition for large spin mixing angles. The…

Quantum-correlated photons generated by nonlocal electron transport

Since the realization of high-quality microwave cavities coupled to quantum dots, one can envisage the possibility to investigate the coherent interaction of light and matter in semiconductor quantum devices. Here we study a parallel double quantum dot device operating as single-electron splitter interferometer, with each dot coupled to a local photon cavity. We explore, how quantum correlation and entanglement between the two separated cavities are generated by the coherent transport of a…

Effect of relativity and vacuum fluctuations on quantum measurement

Vacuum fluctuations can obscure the detection signal of the measurement of the smallest quantum objects like single particles seemingly implying a fundamental limit to measurement accuracy. However, as we show relativistic invariance implies the disappearance of fluctuations for the spacelike spectrum of an observable at zero temperature. This complete absence of noise can be harnessed to perform noiseless measurement of single particles, as we illustrate for electrons or photons. We outline a…

Theory of quantum entanglement and the structure of two-mode squeezed antiferromagnetic magnon vacuum

Recently, investigations of the quantum properties of an antiferromagnet in the spin wave approximation have identified the eigenstates as two-mode squeezed sublattice-magnon states. The uniform magnon states were shown to display a massive sublattice entanglement. Here we extend this idea and study the squeezing properties of all sublattice Fock states throughout the magnetic Brillouin zone. We derive the full statistics of the sublattice magnon number with wave number k in the ground state and…

Controlling charge and spin transport in an Ising-superconductor Josephson junction

An in-plane magnetic field applied to an Ising superconductor converts spin-singlet Cooper pairs to spin-triplet ones. In this work, we study a Josephson junction formed by two Ising superconductors that are proximitized by ferromagnetic (FM) layers. This leads to highly tunable spin-triplet pairing correlations which allow to modulate the charge and spin supercurrents through the in-plane magnetic exchange fields. For a junction with a nonmagnetic barrier, the charge current is switchable by…

Quantum state tomography as a numerical optimization problem

We present a framework that formulates the quest for the most efficient quantum state tomography (QST) measurement set as an optimization problem which can be solved numerically, where the optimization goal is the maximization of the information gain. This approach can be applied to a broad spectrum of relevant setups including measurements restricted to a subsystem. To illustrate the power of this method we present results for the six-dimensional Hilbert space constituted by a qubit–qutrit…

Tensor Monopoles in superconducting systems

Topology in general but also topological objects such as monopoles are a central concept in physics. They are prime examples for the intriguing physics of gauge theories and topological states of matter. Vector monopoles are already frequently discussed such as the well-established Dirac monopole in three dimensions. Less known are tensor monopoles giving rise to tensor gauge fields. Here we report that tensor monopoles can potentially be realized in superconducting multi-terminal systems using…

Resonator-induced quantum phase transitions in a hybrid Josephson junction

We investigate the Josephson current through a suspended carbon nanotube double quantum dot which, at sufficiently low temperatures, is characterized by the ground state of the electronic subsystem. Depending on parameters such as a magnetic field or the interdot coupling, the ground state can either be a current-carrying singlet or doublet, or a blockaded triplet state. Since the electron-vibration interaction has been demonstrated to be electrostatically tunable, we study in particular its…

Revealing channel polarization of atomic contacts of ferromagnets and strong paramagnets by shot-noise measurements

We report measurements of the shot noise of atomic contacts of the ferromagnets cobalt and gadolinium and the strong paramagnets palladium, platinum, and iridium. The contacts are fabricated using the mechanically controlled break-junction technique at 4 K. Single-atom contacts of Co and Gd with conductance smaller than the conductance quantum show reduced noise compared to the expectation for the spin-degenerate single-channel case. We discuss by how far this observation gives evidence for…