Observation of the spin Nernst effect
S Meyer (Technische Universität München, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
Y. Chen (RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS), TU Delft - Applied Sciences, Kavli institute of nanoscience Delft)
S. Wimmer (LMU Munich)
M Althammer (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
T. Wimmer (Technische Universität München, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
Richard Schlitz (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
S Geprags (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
H Huebl (Technische Universität München, Nanosystems Initiative Munich (NIM), Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
D. Kodderitzsch (LMU Munich)
H. Ebert (LMU Munich)
G. E.W. Bauer (Tohoku University, Kavli institute of nanoscience Delft, TU Delft - Applied Sciences)
R Gross (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Nanosystems Initiative Munich (NIM), Technische Universität München)
S. T.B. Goennenwein (Technische Universität München, Nanosystems Initiative Munich (NIM), Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
The observation of the spin Hall effect triggered intense research on pure spin current transport. With the spin Hall effect, the spin Seebeck effect and the spin Peltier effect already observed, our picture of pure spin current transport is almost complete. The only missing piece is the spin Nernst (-Ettingshausen) effect, which so far has been discussed only on theoretical grounds. Here, we report the observation of the spin Nernst effect. By applying a longitudinal temperature gradient, we generate a pure transverse spin current in a Pt thin film. For readout, we exploit the magnetization-orientation-dependent spin transfer to an adjacent yttrium iron garnet layer, converting the spin Nernst current in Pt into a controlled change of the longitudinal and transverse thermopower voltage. Our experiments show that the spin Nernst and the spin Hall effect in Pt are of comparable magnitude, but differ in sign, as corroborated by first-principles calculations.