Tunneling conductance of graphene ferromagnet-insulator-superconductor junctions

preprint2009arXivOpen access

Abstract

We study the transport properties of a graphene ferromagnet-insulator superconductor (FIS) junction within the Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk formalism by solving spin-polarized Dirac-Bogoliubov-de-Gennes equation. We find that the retro and specular Andreev reflections in the graphene FIS junction are drastically modified in the presence of exchange interaction and that the spin-polarization (PTP_T) of tunneling current can be tuned from the positive to negative value by bias voltage (VV). In the thin-barrier limit, the conductance GG of a graphene FIS junction oscillates as a function of barrier strength χχ. Both the amplitude and phase of the conductance oscillation varies with the exchange energy EexE_{ex}. For Eex<EFE_{ex}<E_F (Fermi energy), the amplitude of oscillation decreases with EexE_{ex}. For Eexc>Eex>EFE_{ex}^{c}>E_{ex}>E_F, the amplitude of oscillation increases with EexE_{ex}, where Eexc=2EF+U0E_{ex}^{c}=2E_{F}+U_{0} (U0U_{0} is the applied electrostatic potential on the superconducting segment of the junction). For Eex>EexcE_{ex} > E_{ex}^{c}, the amplitude of oscillation decreases with EexE_{ex} again. Interestingly, a universal phase difference of π/2π/2 in χχ exists between the G−χG-χ curves for Eex>EFE_{ex}>E_F and Eex<EFE_{ex}<E_F. Finally, we find that the transitions between retro and specular Andreev reflections occur at eV=∣EF−Eex∣eV=|E_{F}-E_{ex}| and eV=Eex+EFeV=E_{ex}+E_{F}, and hence the singular behavior of the conductance near these bias voltages results from the difference in transport properties between specular and retro Andreev reflections.

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