Dresden 2014 – scientific programme

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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen

TT 101: Transport - Poster Session

TT 101.5: Poster

Thursday, April 3, 2014, 15:00–19:00, P2

Spin-thermoelectric effects in metals — •Sebastian Tölle¹, Cosimo Gorini², and Ulrich Eckern¹ — ¹Institute of Physics, University of Augsburg, 86135 Augsburg, Germany — ²Service de Physique de l’Etat Condensé, CEA-Saclay, 91191 Gif sur Yvette, France

Via spin-orbit coupling, and even in the absence of magnetic fields, a temperature gradient applied to a two-dimensional electron gas can generate both spin currents and spin polarizations. These phenomena are the thermal counterpart of well-known ones such as the spin Hall effect and the voltage-induced spin polarization, and belong to the fast growing field of spin caloritronics. We study them by means of a generalized Boltzmann equation which takes into account spin-orbit coupling of both intrinsic and extrinsic origin within an SU(2) formulation. We show, in particular, that a thermal gradient induces an in-plane spin polarization and a spin current transverse to the field and polarized out-of-plane (spin Nernst effect). We find that the interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms is critical, and that the relation between spin currents and spin polarizations – well understood in the presence of simple electric drivings – is nontrivially affected by the thermal driving.