Thermal Effects in Spintronics: Physics and Applications

Abstract

Recent progress in investigation of the interplay of spin and heat is reviewed. A special emphasis is placed on the newly discovered example of the thermospin phenomenon termed "spin Seebeck effect" which enables the thermal injection of spin currents from a ferromagnet into attached nonmagnetic metals over a macroscopic scale of several millimeters. The theoretical basis for understanding the spin Seebeck effect is presented, and other thermal spin effects are briefly discussed as well.