自旋Seebeck效应研究进展

Recent Progress in Spin Seebeck Effect

自旋Seebeck效应是自旋电子学的一个新兴领域,它指的是在特定条件下,在强自旋轨道耦合的非磁金属材料与铁磁绝缘体等材料接触时,界面出现温度梯度诱导产生的自旋流注入现象。它实现了从热流到自旋流的转换,同时这种自旋流注入可以通过非磁金属中的逆自旋霍尔效应转化为电荷电压。我们将介绍这个领域最近的实验进展,综述了自旋Seebeck效应的最新机制理论,最后作了器件应用方面的介绍,并对相关理论和实验研究进行了展望,指出要应用于未来热电转换仍是一个挑战性的任务并提出一些解决思路。

Spin Seebeck effect, as an emerging field of spintronics, refers to the phenomenon that under spe-cific conditions, on the contact interface between a non-magnetic metal material with strong spin- orbit coupling and a ferromagnetic insulator or other candidates, there will occur a temperature gradient induced spin injection crossing the boundary. The effect implements the conversion from heat to the spin current, and also this spin current can be transformed into the charge voltage with the help of the inverse spin Hall effect in a non-magnetic metal. We will firstly survey the recent experimental progress in this area, and then review the latest theoretical progress in spin Seebeck effect mechanism. In the final, we will discuss the possibility of its device applications, and give a perspective for the relevant theoretical and experimental research, pointing out that the applica-tion in future thermoelectric conversion remains challenging and some viable solutions are pro-posed.