We study Andreev reflection at an interface between a half metal and a superconductor with spin-orbit interaction. While the absence of minority carriers in the half metal makes singlet Andreev reflection impossible, the spin-orbit interaction gives rise to triplet Andreev reflection (i.e., the reflection of a majority electron into a majority hole or vice versa). As an application of our calculation, we consider a thin half-metal film or wire laterally attached to a superconducting contact. If the half metal is disorder free, an excitation gap is opened that is proportional to the spin-orbit interaction strength in the superconductor. For electrons with energy below this gap a lateral half-metal–superconductor contact becomes a perfect triplet Andreev reflector. We show that the system supports localized Majorana end states in this limit.

• Received 26 November 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.83.054513