2007/07/31 by N. Poli, J. P. Morten, Jan Petter Morten +5 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Magnetic properties of thin films #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.100.136601
5 pages, 5 figures
arxiv created 2007/12/12 · openalex publication_date 2008/04/03 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study spin transport in a superconducting nanowire using a set of closely spaced magnetic tunnel contacts. We observe a giant enhancement of the spin accumulation of up to 5 orders of magnitude on transition into the superconducting state, consistent with the expected changes in the density of states. The spin relaxation length decreases by an order of magnitude from its value in the normal state. These measurements, combined with our theoretical model, allow us to distinguish the individual spin-flip mechanisms present in the transport channel. Our conclusion is that magnetic impurities rather than spin-orbit coupling dominate spin-flip scattering in the superconducting state.