Spintronic technologies require efficient generation and control of spin-polarized currents. Conventional ferromagnet-based methods suffer from sensitivity to external magnetic fields. Andreev reflection spectroscopy is vital for measuring spin polarization and superconducting gaps, yet prevailing theories assume isotropic interface scattering. This neglects ubiquitous anisotropy in heterostructures, causing misinterpretation of material properties. To resolve this, we develop a generalized model incorporating spin-dependent anisotropic scattering. Introducing distinct interface barriers for spin-up and spin-down electrons extends both the Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk formalism and the Chen-Tesanovic-Chien extension. This unified framework describes transport from normal metals to half-metals. Solving the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations with modified boundary conditions yields current formulae with a transmission probability judgment function identifying dominant spin channels. In non-magnetic metals, interfacial anisotropy generates sizable spin-polarized currents via transmission spin filtering, suppressing Andreev reflection and reducing sub-gap conductance. For positively polarized ferromagnets, anisotropy nonlinearly modulates polarization, enhancing Andreev reflection to a threshold before suppression. Negatively polarized materials exhibit inverse spectra, enabling unambiguous polarization sign determination via conductance comparisons. Epitaxial Co film measurements validate the model, resolving subtle anisotropies. This refines Andreev spectrum interpretation and supports interference-resistant spin sources using non-magnetic platforms, benefiting magnetoresistive devices and superconducting quantum technologies.
Spintronic technologies require efficient generation and control of spin-polarized currents. Conventional ferromagnet-based methods suffer from sensitivity to external magnetic fields. Andreev reflection spectroscopy is vital for measuring spin polarization and superconducting gaps, yet prevailing theories assume isotropic interface scattering. This neglects ubiquitous anisotropy in heterostructures, causing misinterpretation of material properties. To resolve this, we develop a generalized model incorporating spin-dependent anisotropic scattering. Introducing distinct interface barriers for spin-up and spin-down electrons extends both the Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk formalism and the Chen-Tesanovic-Chien extension. This unified framework describes transport from normal metals to half-metals. Solving the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations with modified boundary conditions yields current formulae with a transmission probability judgment function identifying dominant spin channels. In non-magnetic metals, interfacial anisotropy generates sizable spin-polarized currents via transmission spin filtering, suppressing Andreev reflection and reducing sub-gap conductance. For positively polarized ferromagnets, anisotropy nonlinearly modulates polarization, enhancing Andreev reflection to a threshold before suppression. Negatively polarized materials exhibit inverse spectra, enabling unambiguous polarization sign determination via conductance comparisons. Epitaxial Co film measurements validate the model, resolving subtle anisotropies. This refines Andreev spectrum interpretation and supports interference-resistant spin sources using non-magnetic platforms, benefiting magnetoresistive devices and superconducting quantum technologies.
Transport in strongly interacting Fermi gases provides a window into the nonequilibrium behavior of strongly correlated fermions. In particular, the interface between a strongly polarized normal gas and a weakly polarized superfluid at finite temperature presents a model for understanding transport at normal-superfluid and normal-superconductor interfaces. An excess of polarization in the normal phase or a deficit of polarization in the superfluid brings the system out of equilibrium, leading to transport currents across the interface. We implement a phenomenological mean-field model of the unitary Fermi gas, and investigate the transport of spin and mass under nonequilibrium conditions. We consider independently prepared normal and superfluid regions brought into contact, and calculate the instantaneous spin and mass currents across the normal-superfluid (NS) interface. For an unpolarized superfluid, we find that spin current is suppressed below a threshold value in the driving chemical potential differences, while the threshold nearly vanishes for a critically polarized superfluid. The mass current can exhibit a threshold in cases where Andreev reflection vanishes, while in general Andreev reflection prevents the occurrence of a threshold in the mass current. Our results provide guidance to future experiments aiming to characterize spin and mass transport across NS interfaces.
Transport in Josephson junctions is commonly described using a simplifying assumption called the Andreev approximation, which assumes that excitations are fixed at the Fermi momentum and only Andreev reflections occur at interfaces (with no normal reflections). This approximation is appropriate for BCS-type superconductors, where the chemical potential vastly exceeds the pairing gap, but it breaks down for superconductors with low carrier density, such as topological superconductors, doped semiconductors, or superfluid quantum gases. Here, we present a generic analytical framework for calculating transport in Josephson junctions that lifts up the requirement of the Andreev approximation. Using this general framework, we study in detail transport in Josephson junctions across the BCS-BEC crossover, which describes the evolution from a BCS-type superconductor with loosely-paired Cooper pairs to a BEC of tighly-paired dimers. As the interaction is tuned from the BCS to the BEC regime, we find that the overall subgap current caused by multiple Andreev reflections decreases, but nonlinearities in the current-voltage characteristic called the subharmonic gap structure become more pronounced near the intermediate unitary limit, giving rise to sharp peaks and dips in the differential conductance with even negative conductance at specific voltages.
Using the time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group (tDMRG), we study the time evolution of electron wave packets in one-dimensional (1D) metal-superconductor heterostructures. The results show Andreev reflection at the interface, as expected. By combining these results with the well-known single-spin-species electron-hole transformation in the Hubbard model, we predict an analogous spin Andreev reflection in metal-Mott insulator heterostructures. This effect is numerically confirmed using 1D tDMRG, but it is expected to also be present in higher dimensions, as well as in more general Hamiltonians. We present an intuitive picture of the spin reflection, analogous to that of Andreev reflection at metal-superconductor interfaces. This allows us to discuss a novel antiferromagnetic proximity effect. Possible experimental realizations are discussed.
As the field of superconducting quantum technology progresses beyond single-qubit control, scalable and multifunctional quantum architectures become increasingly vital. A central challenge is integrating fast, controllable superconducting circuits with components that offer longer coherence, richer physics, or new functionalities. Hybrid quantum systems, where superconducting microwave resonators interface with semiconducting or magnetic subsystems, have the capabilities to fulfil this need, yet they face significant engineering obstacles. Conventional superconducting resonator designs struggle under magnetic field biasing and electrostatic gating, both of which are essential for coupling to spin-based, semiconductor, or magnonic elements.This thesis explores solutions to these bottlenecks through the development of magnetic-field-resilient coplanar stripline (CPS) resonators based on thin-film NbTiN. These resonators retain a stable resonance frequency in in-plane magnetic fields up to 1T, can have high kinetic inductance and offer broad geometrical tunability, enabling strong and ultrastrong coupling to charge- and spin-based quantum systems. In the superconducting–semiconductor domain, we demonstrate high-impedance CPS resonators inductively coupled to Josephson junctions hosting Andreev bound states (ABSs), revealing both coherent pair transitions and single-quasiparticle excitations near the ultrastrong coupling regime. This opens the door to fast, gate-tunable qubits based on microscopic ABSs, distinct from conventional macroscopic qubit architectures, and lays the groundwork for spin–photon hybridisation, non-perturbative light–matter interactions, and parity-based quantum logic.In parallel, this work investigates rare-earth iron garnet (ReIG) ferrimagnetic insulators as low-loss spin-wave media compatible with superconducting devices. In sputtered thin-film thulium iron garnet (TmIG) with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, we observe deterministic spin-orbit torque switching and multiple magnetisation polarity reversals. These properties showcase the attractiveness of TmIG both for low-dissipation magnonic information transport and as magnetic interfaces for superconducting hybrid devices. Taken together, the results of this thesis establish materials, device concepts, and measurement strategies for novel classes of hybrid quantum systems that combine robust superconducting circuitry, electrostatically tunable semiconductor excitations, and industry-scalable magnetic elements and pave the way for next-generation hybrid quantum systems. More broadly, they provide concrete routes to overcoming limitations of existing hybrid platforms and advance the development of versatile, low-dissipation quantum technologies.
Andreev scattering and the Josephson current through a one-dimensional interacting electron liquid sandwiched between two superconductors are reexamined. We first present some apparently new results on the noninteracting case by studying an exactly solvable tight-binding model rather than the usual continuum model. We show that perfect Andreev scattering (i.e., zero normal scattering) at the Fermi energy can only be achieved by fine-tuning junction parameters, a fine-tuning which is possible even with bandwidth mismatch between superconductor and normal metal. We also obtain exact results for the Josephson current, which is generally a smooth function of the superconducting phase difference except when the junction parameters are adjusted to give perfect Andreev scattering, in which case it becomes a sawtooth function. We then observe that, even when interactions are included, all low-energy properties of a junction $(E\ensuremath{\ll}\ensuremath{\Delta},$ the superconducting gap) can be obtained by ``integrating out'' the superconducting electrons to obtain an effective Hamiltonian describing the metallic electrons only with a boundary pairing interaction. This boundary model provides a suitable starting point for bosonization-renormalization group-boundary conformal field theory analysis. We argue that total normal reflection and total Andreev reflection correspond to two fixed points of the boundary renormalization group. For repulsive bulk interactions the Andreev fixed point is unstable and the normal one stable. However, the reverse is true for attractive interactions. This implies that a generic junction Hamiltonian (without fine-tuned junction parameters) will renormalize to the normal fixed point for repulsive interations but to the Andreev one for attractive interations. An exact mapping of our tight-binding model to the Hubbard model with a transverse magnetic field is used to help understand this behavior. We calculate the critical exponents, which are different at these two different fixed points.
Conventional tunnel Josephson junctions form the basic building blocks of superconducting electronics. Their operation is based on comparatively simple dynamics where the superconducting phases across the junctions is the only dynamical degree of freedom. The goal of the project on which this thesis is based, is to understand the physics and develop a consistent theoretical description of the quantum dynamics of unconventional Josephson structures: spin active junctions, junctions containing low energy quasiparticles, and junctions composed of d-wave superconductors. Spin active Josephson junctions involve the additional degree of freedom of quasiparticle spin. Here we theoretically investigate the spin-structure of the current carrying interface bound states - Andreev Bound States (ABS), and induced ground state spin polarization of a short (shorter than the superconducting coherence length) nanowire junction containing a localized magnetic moment. We show that temporal variation of the superconducting phase difference and magnetic moment induce rotations in spin polarized and unpolarized subspaces respectively, which is manifested by temporal oscillation of the Josephson current.The interlevel transitions obey a selection rule that forbids manipulations in a certain region ofexternal parameters and results from specific properties of Andreev bound states in magnetic contacts where, in a certain regime of phase bias and strength of magnetic scatterer, ABS belong to different eigenstates of the combined charge and parity inversion symmetry operator.A general framework is developed to include low energy quasiparticle states into the dynamics of Josephson junctions. Such states exist in e.g. constriction type junctions with high transparency channels or resonant states, as well as in junctions of unconventional superconductors. The existence of such states prevent the separation of energy scales which in conventional tunnel junctions freezes out the quasiparticle degrees of freedom. We show that the resonant interaction with such low energy states rather than the Josephson potential defines the nonlinear Josephson dynamics at small amplitudes.The framework is applied to high temperature Josephson junctions, whose unconventional order parameter admits ABS with energies in the middle of the superconducting gap - Mid Gap States (MGS). In addition to the non-linear dynamics induced by the MGS, we identify a reentrance effect in the transition between thermal activation and macroscopic quantum tunneling associated with the MGS, and connect this phenomenon to experimental observations.