Reduced decay in Josephson coupling across ferromagnetic junctions with spin–orbit coupling layers

The generation of Sz = 1 triplet Cooper pairs has been predicted theoretically in superconducting–ferromagnetic hybrid heterostructures in the presence of spin–orbit coupling [F. S. Bergeret and I. V. Tokatly, Phys. Rev. B 89, 134517 (2014) and Jacobsen et al., Sci. Rep. 6, 23926 (2016)]. In this study, we experimentally investigate vertical Josephson junctions where the weak link is formed from a ferromagnetic layer with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy sandwiched by two non-magnetic layers with weak or strong spin–orbit coupling. We find that the decay of the Josephson coupling is reduced in the latter case, possibly indicating the presence of Sz = 1 spin-triplet correlations. We speculate that the canted magnetization required for these correlations is provided by the interaction of magnetization with Meissner effect in the superconducting layers.