Issue |
EPL
Volume 110, Number 2, April 2015
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 27004 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | Condensed Matter: Electronic Structure, Electrical, Magnetic and Optical Properties | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/110/27004 | |
Published online | 06 May 2015 |
Coexistence of superconductivity and magnetism in spin-fermion model of ferrimagnetic spinel in an external magnetic field
Department of Physics, University of Sofia - 1164 Sofia, Bulgaria
Received: 22 December 2014
Accepted: 10 April 2015
A two-sublattice spin-fermion model of ferrimagnetic spinel, with spin- itinerant electrons at the sublattice A site and spin-s localized electrons at the sublattice B site is considered. The exchange between itinerant and localized electrons is antiferromagnetic. As a result, the external magnetic field, applied along the magnetization of the localized electrons, compensates the Zeeman splitting due to the spin-fermion exchange and magnon-fermion interaction induces spin antiparallel p-wave superconductivity which coexists with magnetism. We have obtained five characteristic values of the applied field (in units of energy) Hcr1 < H3 < H0 < H4 < Hcr2. At H0 the external magnetic field compensates the Zeeman splitting. When Hcr1 < H < Hcr2 the spin antiparallel p-wave superconductivity with T1u configuration coexists with magnetism. The superconductor-to-normal magnet transition at finite temperature is second order when H runs the interval . It is an abrupt transition when Hcr1 < H < H3 or H4 < H < Hcr2. This is proved calculating the temperature dependence of the gap for three different values of the external magnetic field Hcr1 < H < H3, H4 < H < Hcr2 and . In the first two cases the abrupt fall to zero of the gap at superconducting critical temperature shows that the superconductor-to-normal magnet transition is first order. The Hubbard term (Coulomb repulsion), in a weak-coupling regime, does not significantly affect the magnon-induced superconductivity. Relying on the above results one can formulate a recipe for preparing a superconductor from ferrimagnetic spinel: i) hydrostatic pressure above the critical value of insulator-metal transition; ii) external magnetic field along the sublattice magnetization with higher amplitude.
PACS: 75.50.Gg – Ferrimagnetics / 74.20.Mn – Nonconventional mechanisms / 74.20.Rp – Pairing symmetries (other than s-wave)
© EPLA, 2015
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