Eur. Phys. J. B 80, 445-449 (2011)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2011-20027-0

Effect of the variation of the exchange energy on the superconducting critical temperature of S/F/S trilayers

¹ Belarus State University of Informatics and RadioElectronics, P. Browka 6, 220013 Minsk, Belarus
² Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9504, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
³ CNR-SPIN Salerno and Dipartimento di Fisica “E.R. Caianiello”, Università degli Studi di Salerno, Fisciano (Sa) 84084, Italy

Corresponding author: ^a attanasio@sa.infn.it

Received: 12 January 2011
Published online: 30 March 2011

Abstract

The effect of the exchange energy variation in weakly ferromagnetic alloys on the superconducting resistive transition of superconductor/ferromagnet/superconductor (S/F/S) trilayers is studied. Critical temperature, T_c, and resistive transitions versus the F-layer thickness, d_F, have been analyzed in Nb/Cu_0.41Ni_0.59/Nb and Nb/Pd_0.81Ni_0.19/Nb trilayers. We show that T_c(d_F) dependence is sensitive to magnetic inhomogeneities in the F-layer for values of d_F corresponding to thickness range where the π-superconducting state is established.