SPP 1538:  Spin Caloric Transport (SpinCaT)

• Subject Area: Physics ; Chemistry
• Term: from 2011 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 172432838

Spin polarised currents in magnetic nanostructures give rise to novel spin caloric effects. These effects modify thermal transport, magneto-resistance and possibly even magnetic states. To understand the observed effects an extension of thermodynamic laws including the spin is inevitable.
It is long known that heat and charge currents are closely linked to each other by, e.g., the Wiedemann-Franz law, which connects thermal and electrical conductivities. The coupling leads to thermoelectric effects with prominent examples being the Seebeck effect and its inverse, the Peltier effect, which may be described through the Onsager relations. These effects are used in devices such as thermocouples and thermo-electric cooling devices, respectively. It became clear only recently that these long-known thermoelectric phenomena need to be reconsidered by including the spin. This avenue is expected to generate completely new spin-related properties in the solid state.
The hypothesis that in magnetic systems spin entropy can be created, manipulated and transported by non-equilibrium charge and heat currents is compelling. Non-equilibrium magneto-caloric transport effects such as the Nernst-Ettingshausen effects will face novel spin and anomalous counterparts. Spin transport phenomena in the presence of a thermal gradient or the lateral transport of heat via magnetic excitations need to be studied.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• International Connection: Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland

Projects

• Ab initio modeling of spincaloric transport in nanostructered Heusler alloys (Applicants Entel, Peter ;  Kratzer, Peter ;  Popescu, Voicu )
• Boltzmann approach to coupled spin and heat transport in ferromagnets (Applicant von Oppen, Felix )
• Computational design of spin-caloric nanosructures (Applicant Mavropoulos, Phivos )
• Cooling a nanoscale device by a spin-polarized nonequilibrium current (Applicant Thorwart, Michael )
• Coordination Funds (Applicant Back, Christian )
• Experiments on giant thermal magnetogalvanic efects in magnetic tunnel junctions (Applicants Münzenberg, Markus ;  Reiss, Günter )
• Exploring the thermoelectric properties of normal/ferromagnetic interfaces using current heating techniques (Applicant Gould, Charles )
• Hybrid systems consisting of epitaxial Heusler-alloy films on semiconductor structures for spin-caloric applications (Applicant Ramsteiner, Manfred )
• Interaction of subthermal magnons and phonons and their role for the transverse Seebeck effect (Applicant Demokritov, Ph.D., Sergej O. )
• Koordinatorantrag (Applicant Back, Christian )
• Magneto-Seebeck Tunneling Across a Vacuum Barrier (Applicant Krause, Stefan )
• Magnon mediated heat and spin transport in magnetic insulators (Applicant Vasyuchka, Vitaliy )
• Magnon Seebeck effect (Applicant Serha, Oleksandr )
• Manipulating thermal transport using the spin moment (Applicant Jakob, Gerhard )
• Spin- and Magneto-Seebeck effects in novel magnetic thin film materials (Applicant Reiss, Günter )
• Spin-caloric phenomena in suspended ferromagnets: from plane film to low-dimensional effects (Applicant Grundler, Dirk )
• Spin-caloric transport in magnetoresistive nanostructures (Applicants Ansermet, Jean-Philippe ;  Reiss, Günter ;  Zierold, Robert )
• Spin Caloritronics in III-V-Semiconductors (Applicant Beschoten, Bernd )
• Spin-current-induced modification of the thermal Boltzmann distribution in paramagnetic and ferromagnetic nanostructures (Applicant Meckenstock, Ralf )
• Spin currents and domain wall dynamics based on the spin Seebeck effect (Applicants Kläui, Mathias ;  Nowak, Ulrich )
• Spin-dependent thermo-galvanic effects: experiment (Applicant Gönnenwein, Sebastian )
• Spin-dependent thermo-galvanic effects: Theory (Applicant Ebert, Hubert )
• Spincaloric transport and thermal spin transfer torque in thin film nanostructures (Applicants Back, Christian ;  Strunk, Christoph )
• Spincaloritronics with superconductor-ferromagnet heterostructures (Applicant Belzig, Wolfgang )
• Study of the spin Nernst effect: absolute moments and dynamics (Applicants Schmidt, Georg ;  Woltersdorf, Georg )
• Theory of giant thermal magnetogalvanic effects in magnetic tunnel junctions (Applicant Heiliger, Christian )
• Theory of spin caloric transport / spin caloritronics (Applicant Bauer, Gerrit E.W. )
• Theory of spin-polarized thermal transport in ferromagnetic metallic heterostructures (Applicant Fabian, Jaroslav )
• Theory of thermally driven spin-transport in spin-orbit coupled systems (Applicant Sinova, Ph.D., Jairo )
• Thermal spin transfer torque dynamics and tunnelling magneto Seebeck effect in magnetic nanostructures (Applicant Schumacher, Hans-Werner )
• Thermal Spin-Transfer Torques (Applicants Deac, Ph.D., Alina ;  Lindner, Jürgen )
• Thermal transport and domain structure (Applicants Hemker-Heß, Christian ;  Schäfer, Rudolf )
• Thermally induced spin polarization (Applicant Kuschel, Ph.D., Timo )
• Topological transverse spin, charge and heat transport driven by temperature gradients in transition-metal compounds from first principles (Applicant Mokrousov, Yuriy )
• Transversal transport properties and electron-magnon interaction: An ab initio description (Applicants Ernst, Arthur ;  Mertig, Ingrid )
• Ultrafast spin-dependent and spin Seebeck effect: beyond diffusive spin transport, toward a spin-caloritronic terahertz emitter (Applicant Kampfrath, Tobias )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Christian Back