Eur. Phys. J. B (2018) 91: 12
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2017-80465-0

Regular Article

Tunneling conductance oscillations in spin–orbit coupled metal–insulator–superconductor junctions

Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, Assam 781039, India

^a e-mail: priyadarshini@iitg.ernet.in

Received: 8 August 2017
Received in final form: 30 October 2017
Published online: 17 January 2018

Abstract

The tunneling conductance for a device consisting of a metal–insulator–superconductor (MIS) junction is studied in presence of Rashba spin–orbit coupling (RSOC) via an extended Blonder–Tinkham–Klapwijk formalism. We find that the tunneling conductance as a function of an effective barrier potential that defines the insulating layer and lies intermediate to the metallic and superconducting electrodes, displays an oscillatory behavior. The tunneling conductance shows high sensitivity to the RSOC for certain ranges of this potential, while it is insensitive to the RSOC for others. Additionally, when the period of oscillations is an odd multiple of a certain value of the effective potential, the conductance spectrum as a function of the biasing energy demonstrates a contrasting trend with RSOC, compared to when it is not an odd multiple. The explanations for the observation can be found in terms of a competition between the normal and Andreev reflections. Similar oscillatory behavior of the conductance spectrum is also seen for other superconducting pairing symmetries, thereby emphasizing that the insulating layer plays a decisive role in the conductance oscillations of a MIS junction. For a tunable Rashba coupling, the current flowing through the junction can be controlled with precision.