P-wave Cooper pair splitting

Abstract

Background: Splitting of Cooper pairs has recently been realized experimentally for s-wave Cooper pairs. A split Cooper pair represents an entangled two-electron pair state, which has possible application in on-chip quantum computation. Likewise the spin-activity 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.

Keywords

• Cooper pair splitting
• entanglement
• Hamiltonian approach
• spin-active scattering
• superconductivity