Ferromagnetic materials for Josephson π junctions

Abstract

The past two decades have seen an explosion of work on Josephson junctions containing ferromagnetic materials. Such junctions are under consideration for applications in digital superconducting logic and memory. In the presence of the exchange field, spin–singlet Cooper pairs from conventional superconductors undergo rapid phase oscillations as they propagate through a ferromagnetic material. As a result, the ground-state phase difference across a ferromagnetic Josephson junction oscillates between 0 and π as a function of the thickness of the ferromagnetic material. π-junctions have been proposed as circuit elements in superconducting digital logic and in certain qubit designs for quantum computing. If a junction contains two or more ferromagnetic layers whose relative magnetization directions can be controlled by a small applied magnetic field, then the junction can serve as the foundation for a memory cell. Success in all of those applications requires careful choices of ferromagnetic materials. Often, materials that optimize magnetic properties do not optimize supercurrent propagation, and vice versa. In this review, we discuss the significant progress that has been made in identifying and testing a wide range of ferromagnetic materials in Josephson junctions over the past two decades. The review concentrates on ferromagnetic metals, partly because eventual industrial applications of ferromagnetic Josephson junctions will most likely start with metallic ferromagnets (either in all metal junctions or junctions containing an insulating layer). We will briefly mention work on non-metallic barriers, including ferromagnetic insulators, and some of the exciting work on spin–triplet supercurrent in junctions containing non-collinear magnetic inhomogeneity.