Ferromagnetic superconductors

• Review of ferromagnetic superconductors.
• Covers UGe2, URhGe and UCoGe and briefly other materials.
• The focus is on experimental data and the pairing mechanism.

The co-existence of superconductivity and ferromagnetism is of potential interest for spintronics and high magnetic field applications as well as a fascinating fundamental state of matter. The recent focus of research is on a family of ferromagnetic superconductors that are superconducting well below their Curie temperature, the first example of which was discovered in 2000. Although there is a ‘standard’ theoretical model for how magnetic pairing might bring about such a state, why it has only been seen in a few materials that at first sight appear to be very closely related has yet to be fully explained. This review covers the current state of knowledge of the magnetic and superconducting properties of these materials with emphasis on how they conform and differ from the behaviour expected from the ‘standard’ model and from each other.