Longitudinal spin-Seebeck effect in sintered polycrystalline (Mn,Zn)Fe2O4

This paper reports that the longitudinal spin-Seebeck effect appears even in a sintered polycrystalline Mn-Zn ferrite [(Mn,Zn)Fe2O4] slab. The effect drives a spin current flowing across an interface between the (Mn,Zn)Fe2O4 slab and an attached Pt film along a temperature gradient and it generates electric voltage via the inverse spin-Hall effect in the Pt film. Since the observed phenomenon enables thermal generation of electric voltage from commonly used polycrystalline insulators, it can be used as a versatile and low-cost thermoelectric generator. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3533397]