Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
<mark>Journal publication date</mark> | 07/2001 |
---|---|
<mark>Journal</mark> | Journal of Low Temperature Physics |
Issue number | 1-2 |
Volume | 124 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Pages (from-to) | 305-320 |
Publication Status | Published |
<mark>Original language</mark> | English |
We study spin-dependent electronic transport across ferromagnet/superconductor ballistic junctions modeled using tight-binding Hamiltonians with s, p and d orbitals and material-specific parameters. The first result of this paper is that, by accurately modeling the band structure of the bulk materials, one can reproduce the measured differential conductance of Cu/Pb nanocontacts(1,2). In contrast the differential conductance of Co/Pb contacts can only be reproduced if an enhanced magnetic moment is present at the interface. The second result concerns the reliability of a method proposed in Refs. 1-3 for determining the degree of polarization of a ferromagnet. By fitting the material-specific differential conductance curves to curves calculated using a single-band model we show that this method does not yield reliable values for polarization and spin-dependent transmission.