Scattering-Independent Anomalous Nernst Effect in Ferromagnets

TL;DR

This study calculates the scattering-independent contributions to the anomalous Nernst effect in ferromagnets using density functional theory, highlighting their comparable importance and agreement with experimental data.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive first-principles analysis of intrinsic and side-jump contributions to the anomalous Nernst effect in ferromagnets, which was not previously fully understood.

Findings

Intrinsic and side-jump contributions are both significant.

Calculations match experimental magnitude and sign.

Scattering-independent effects are crucial in ferromagnetic Nernst response.

Abstract

Using the full-potential linearized augmented plane-wave method within the density functional theory, we compute all contributions to the scattering independent part of the thermoelectric conductivity tensor, namely the intrinsic contribution and the side-jump contribution. For the ferromagnetic materials bcc Fe, hcp Co, fcc Ni and L1_0 ordered alloys FePd and FePt, our investigations of the energy and temperature dependence of the intrinsic and side-jump contributions show that they are both of equal importance. Overall, our calculations are able to correctly reproduce the order of magnitude and sign of the experimentally measured signal, suggesting that the scattering independent part plays an important role in the anomalous Nernst effect of ferromagnets.