Controllable Enhancement of p-Wave Superconductivity via Magnetic Coupling to a Conventional Superconductor

Abstract

Unconventional superconductors are of high interest due to their rich physics, a topical example being topological edge states associated with p-wave superconductivity. A practical obstacle in studying such systems is the very low critical temperature Tc that is required to realize a p-wave superconducting phase in a material. We predict that the Tc of an intrinsic p-wave superconductor can be significantly enhanced by coupling to a conventional s-wave or d-wave superconductor with a higher critical temperature via an atomically thin ferromagnetic (F) layer. We show that this Tc boost is tunable via the direction of the magnetization in F. Moreover, we show that the enhancement in Tc can also be achieved using the Zeeman effect of an external magnetic field. Our findings provide a way to increase Tc in p-wave superconductors in a controllable way and make the exotic physics associated with such materials more easily accessible experimentally.