Thermoelectric Effects in Magnetic Nanostructures

TL;DR

This paper models thermoelectric effects in magnetic nanostructures, providing analytical expressions for thermopower and temperature changes, highlighting spin-dependent effects and their dependence on magnetic alignment and scattering.

Contribution

It introduces a finite-element model for thermoelectric effects in magnetic multilayers, including analytical formulas for thermopower and temperature variations, emphasizing spin-heat coupling.

Findings

Thermopower is spin-polarized in magnetic elements.

Thermoelectric effects depend on magnetization alignment.

Spin-flip scattering influences thermoelectric behavior.

Abstract

We model and evaluate the Peltier and Seebeck effects in magnetic multilayer nanostructures by a finite-element theory of thermoelectric properties. We present analytical expressions for the thermopower and the current-induced temperature changes due to Peltier cooling/heating. The thermopower of a magnetic element is in general spin-polarized, leading to spin-heat coupling effects. Thermoelectric effects in spin valves depend on the relative alignment of the magnetization directions and are sensitive to spin-flip scattering as well as inelastic collisions in the normal metal spacer.