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Spin heat accumulation and spin-dependent temperatures in nanopillar spin valves

Nature Physics volume 9, pages 636–639 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Since the discovery of the giant magnetoresistance effect1,2 the intrinsic angular momentum of the electron has opened up new spin-based device concepts. Our present understanding of the coupled transport of charge, spin and heat relies on the two-channel model for spin-up and spin-down electrons having equal temperatures. Here we report the observation of different (effective) temperatures for the spin-up and spin-down electrons in a nanopillar spin valve subject to a heat current. By three-dimensional finite element modelling3 of our devices for varying thickness of the non-magnetic layer, spin heat accumulations (the difference of the spin temperatures) of 120 mK and 350 mK are extracted at room temperature and 77 K, respectively, which is of the order of 10% of the total temperature bias over the nanopillar. This technique uniquely allows the study of inelastic spin scattering at low energies and elevated temperatures, which is not possible by spectroscopic methods.

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Figure 1: SHA at an F/N interface.
Figure 2: SHA in an F/N/F spin valve.
Figure 3: Device geometry.
Figure 4: Measured spin heat and conventional spin valve effects.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge B. Wolfs, M. de Roosz and J. G. Holstein for technical assistance. This work is part of the research programme of the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) and supported by NanoLab NL, EU FP7 ICT Grant No. 251759 MACALO, JSPS Grand-in-Aid for Scientific Research A No. 25247056, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) Priority Programme SPP 1538 ‘Spin-Caloric Transport’ and the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials.

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Author notes

  1. F. K. Dejene and J. Flipse: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, Physics of Nanodevices, University of Groningen, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands

    F. K. Dejene, J. Flipse & B. J. van Wees

  2. Kavli Institute of NanoScience, Delft University of Technology, 2628 CJ Delft, The Netherlands

    G. E. W. Bauer

  3. Institute for Materials Research and WPI Advanced Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8577, Japan

    G. E. W. Bauer

Authors
  1. F. K. Dejene
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  2. J. Flipse
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  3. G. E. W. Bauer
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  4. B. J. van Wees
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Contributions

F.K.D., J.F. and B.J.v.W. conceived the experiments. F.K.D. and J.F. designed and carried out the main experiments. All authors were involved in the analysis. F.K.D. and J.F. wrote the paper, with the help of the co-authors.

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Correspondence to F. K. Dejene.

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Dejene, F., Flipse, J., Bauer, G. et al. Spin heat accumulation and spin-dependent temperatures in nanopillar spin valves. Nature Phys 9, 636–639 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2743

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