P-wave Cooper pair splitting

Abstract

Background: Splitting of Cooper pairs has recently been realized experimentally for s-wave Cooper pairs. A split Cooper pairrepresents an entangled two-electron pair state, which has possible application in on-chip quantum computation. Likewise the spinactivity of interfaces in nanoscale tunnel junctions has been investigated theoretically and experimentally in recent years. However, the possible implications of spin-active interfaces in Cooper pair splitters so far have not been investigated. Results: We analyze the current and the cross correlation of currents in a superconductor-ferromagnet beam splitter, including spin-active scattering. Using the Hamiltonian formalism, we calculate the cumulant-generating function of charge transfer. As a first step, we discuss characteristics of the conductance for crossed Andreev reflection in superconductor-ferromagnet beam splitters with s-wave and p-wave superconductors and no spin-active scattering. In a second step, we consider spin-active scattering and show how to realize p-wave splitting using only an s-wave superconductor, through the process of spin-flipped crossed Andreev reflection. We present results for the conductance and cross correlations. Conclusion: Spin-activity of interfaces in Cooper pair splitters allows for new features in ordinary s-wave Cooper pair splitters, that can otherwise only be realized by using p-wave superconductors. In particular, it provides access to Bell states that are different from the typical spin singlet state. © 2012 Soller and Komnik.