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Direct observation of the spin-dependent Peltier effect

Nature Nanotechnology volume 7, pages 166–168 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

The Peltier coefficient describes the amount of heat that is carried by an electrical current when it passes through a material1. When two materials with different Peltier coefficients are placed in contact with one another, the Peltier effect causes a net flow of heat either towards or away from the interface between them. Spintronics2 describes the transport of electric charge and spin angular momentum by separate spin-up and spin-down channels in a device. The observation that spin-up and spin-down charge transport channels are able to transport heat independently of each other3 has raised the possibility that spin currents could be used to heat or cool the interface between materials with different spin-dependent Peltier coefficients. Here, we report the direct observation of the heating and cooling of such an interface by a spin current. We demonstrate this spin-dependent Peltier effect in a spin-valve pillar structure that consists of two ferromagnetic layers separated by a non-ferromagnetic metal. Using a three-dimensional finite-element model, we extract spin-dependent Peltier coefficients in the range −0.9 to −1.3 mV for permalloy. The magnetic control of heat flow could prove useful for the cooling of nanoscale electronic components or devices4.

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Figure 1: Concept of the spin-dependent Peltier effect.
Figure 2: Spin-dependent Peltier effect in an F/N/F spin-valve stack.
Figure 3: Device geometry.
Figure 4: Spin-dependent Peltier and spin-valve measurements.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank B. Wolfs, M. de Roosz and J.G. Holstein for technical assistance and N. Vlietstra for initial pillar testing. This work is part of the research programme of the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) and is supported by NanoLab NL, EU FP7 ICT (grant no. 257159 MACALO) and the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials.

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  1. J. Flipse and F. L. Bakker: 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

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

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  1. J. Flipse
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Contributions

J.F., F.L.B., A.S. and B.J.v.W. conceived the experiments. J.F. and F.L.B. designed and carried out the main experiments. J.F., F.L.B. and F.K.D. took part in the fabrication process. J.F. and F.L.B. performed the analysis and wrote the paper, with the help of all authors.

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Correspondence to J. Flipse.

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Flipse, J., Bakker, F., Slachter, A. et al. Direct observation of the spin-dependent Peltier effect. Nature Nanotech 7, 166–168 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2012.2

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