Dhavala Suri

Project title: Superconductor and Non-Collinear Ferromagnet Hybrids: A Platform for Emergent Superconducting and Magnetic Phases

Host Institution: Technical University of Munich (TUM)

Host Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Christian H. Back

Co-host Institution: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

Co-host Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Dirk Grundler

Summary project: Proximity coupled hetero-structures offer a robust interfacial platform that may host novel emergent quantum states inaccessible to individual materials forming the interface. Besides the profound fundamental importance, their investigation is pertinent for technological advancements as well. We propose to investigate experimentally the interface of a superconductor (SC) with a non-collinear ferromagnetic insulator (NFI) that hosts non-trivial chiral twists referred to as skyrmions. This system fosters emergent states affecting both sides of the interface. First, skyrmions are expected to create bound states at the interface causing spin triplet correlations in the SC; second, the Cooper pairs in the SC should mediate long-range interaction between skyrmions and hence affecting the skyrmion radius significantly. Properties of the SC in this hetero-structure shall be investigated via electronic and magneto-transport of nano-devices and Josephson junctions of SC/NFI based hetero-structures. The latter will be studied via ferromagnetic resonance and resonant elastic soft X-ray scattering, which are highly sensitive techniques to probe magnetization dynamics and interfacial magnetic ordering, respectively. The outcome of this study shall demonstrate the interplay between topology of spin textures and superconductivity in SC/Non-collinear magnet hetero-structures and open the path for further theoretical studies and experiments.