We study the Josephson current through a ferromagnetic trilayer, in both the diffusive and clean limits. For collinear (parallel or antiparallel) magnetizations in the layers, the Josephson current is small due to the short range proximity effect in superconductor/ferromagnet structures. For noncollinear magnetizations, we determine the conditions for the Josephson current to be dominated by another contribution originating from the long range triplet proximity effect.

• Received 16 July 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.76.060504