During the past 15 years a new field has emerged, which combines superconductivity and spintronics, with the goal to pave a way for new types of devices for applications combining the virtues of both by offering the possibility of long-range spin-polarized supercurrents. Such supercurrents constitute a fruitful basis for the study of fundamental physics as they combine macroscopic quantum coherence with microscopic exchange interactions, spin selectivity, and spin transport. This report follows recent developments in the controlled creation of long-range equal-spin triplet supercurrents in ferromagnets and its contribution to spintronics. The mutual proximity-induced modification of order in superconductor-ferromagnet hybrid structures introduces in a natural way such evasive phenomena as triplet superconductivity, odd-frequency pairing, Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov pairing, long-range equal-spin supercurrents, [Formula: see text]-Josephson junctions, as well as long-range magnetic proximity effects. All these effects were rather exotic before 2000, when improvements in nanofabrication and materials control allowed for a new quality of hybrid structures. Guided by pioneering theoretical studies, experimental progress evolved rapidly, and since 2010 triplet supercurrents are routinely produced and observed. We have entered a new stage of studying new phases of matter previously out of our reach, and of merging the hitherto disparate fields of superconductivity and spintronics to a new research direction: super-spintronics.

A marriage between superconductivity and ferromagnetism is opening the door for new spin-based applications.

We review recent experimental and theoretical results on the interaction between single-particle excitations and collective spin excitations in the superconducting state of high-Tc cuprates. We concentrate on the traces, that sharp features in the magnetic-excitation spectrum (measured by inelastic neutron scattering) imprint in the spectra of single-particle excitations (measured e.g. by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, tunneling spectroscopy, and indirectly also by optical spectroscopy). The ideal object to obtain a quantitative picture for these interaction effects is a spin-1 excitation around 40 meV, termed 'resonance mode'. Although the total weight of this spin-1 excitation is small, the confinement of its weight to a rather narrow momentum region around the antiferromagnetic wavevector makes it possible to observe strong self-energy effects in parts of the electronic Brillouin zone. Notably the sharpness of the magnetic excitation in energy has allowed to trace these self-energy effects in the single-particle spectrum rather precisely. Namely, the doping-and temperature dependence together with the characteristic energy-and momentum behavior of the resonance mode has been used as a tool to examine the corresponding self-energy effects in the dispersion and in the spectral lineshape of the single-particle spectra, and to separate them from similar effects due to electron-phonon interaction. This leads to the unique possibility to single out the self-energy effects due to the spin-fermion interaction and to directly determine the strength of this interaction in high-Tc cuprate superconductors. The knowledge of this interaction is important for the interpretation of other experimental results as well as for the quest for the still unknown pairing mechanism in these interesting superconducting materials.

Interfaces between materials with differently ordered phases present unique opportunities to study fundamental problems in physics. One example is the interface between a singlet superconductor and a half-metallic ferromagnet, where Cooper pairing occurs between electrons with opposite spin on one side, while the other displays 100% spin polarisation. The recent surprising observation of a supercurrent through half-metallic CrO_2 therefore requires a mechanism for conversion between unpolarised and completely spin polarised supercurrents. Here we suggest a conversion mechanism based on electron spin precession together with triplet pair rotation at interfaces with broken spin-rotation symmetry. In the diffusive limit the triplet supercurrent is dominated by inter-related odd-frequency s-wave and even-frequency p-wave pairs. In the crossover to the ballistic limit additional symmetry components become relevant. The interface region exhibits a superconducting state of mixed-spin pairs with highly unusual symmetry properties that opens up new perspectives for exotic Josephson devices.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, published version including supplementary material, with some typos corrected. (Submitted to Nature Physics: 4 Dec 2006, published 13 Jan 2008

We investigate the Josephson coupling between two singlet superconductors separated by a half-metallic magnet. The mechanism behind the coupling is provided by the rotation of the quasiparticle spin in the superconductor during reflection events at the interface with the half metal. Spin rotation induces triplet correlations in the superconductor which, in the presence of surface spin-flip scattering, results in an indirect Josephson effect between the superconductors. We present a theory appropriate for studying this phenomenon and calculate physical properties for a superconductor/half-metal/superconductor heterostructure.