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Title: Length Scale of the Spin Seebeck Effect

Abstract

We study the origin of the spin Seebeck effect in yttrium iron garnet (YIG) samples for film thicknesses from 20 nm to 50 μm at room temperature and 50 K. Our results exhibit a characteristic increase of the longitudinal spin Seebeck effect amplitude with the thickness of the insulating ferrimagnetic YIG, which levels off at a critical thickness that increases with decreasing temperature. The observed behavior cannot be explained as an interface effect or by variations of the material parameters. Comparison to numerical simulations of thermal magnonic spin currents yields qualitative agreement for the thickness dependence resulting from the finite magnon propagation length. This allows us to trace the origin of the observed signals to genuine bulk magnonic spin currents due to the spin Seebeck effect ruling out an interface origin and allowing us to gauge the reach of thermally excited magnons in this system for different temperatures. At low temperature, even quantitative agreement with the simulations is found.

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [3];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [2];  [1]
  1. Johannes Gutenberg Univ., Mainz (Germany)
  2. Univ. of Konstanz, Konstanz (Germany)
  3. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
  4. Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern (Germany); Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Lemont, IL (United States)
  5. Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern (Germany)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S3TEC); Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
OSTI Identifier:
1371003
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1213287
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0001299; FG02-09ER46577
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Physical Review Letters
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 115; Journal Issue: 9; Related Information: S3TEC partners with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (lead); Boston College; Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Journal ID: ISSN 0031-9007
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS; solar (photovoltaic); solar (thermal); solid state lighting; phonons; thermal conductivity; thermoelectric; defects; mechanical behavior; charge transport; spin dynamics; materials and chemistry by design; optics, synthesis (novel materials); synthesis (self-assembly); synthesis (scalable processing)

Citation Formats

Kehlberger, Andreas, Ritzmann, Ulrike, Hinzke, Denise, Guo, Er-Jia, Cramer, Joel, Jakob, Gerhard, Onbasli, Mehmet C., Kim, Dong Hun, Ross, Caroline A., Jungfleisch, Matthias B., Hillebrands, Burkard, Nowak, Ulrich, and Kläui, Mathias. Length Scale of the Spin Seebeck Effect. United States: N. p., 2015. Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.096602.
Kehlberger, Andreas, Ritzmann, Ulrike, Hinzke, Denise, Guo, Er-Jia, Cramer, Joel, Jakob, Gerhard, Onbasli, Mehmet C., Kim, Dong Hun, Ross, Caroline A., Jungfleisch, Matthias B., Hillebrands, Burkard, Nowak, Ulrich, & Kläui, Mathias. Length Scale of the Spin Seebeck Effect. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.096602
Kehlberger, Andreas, Ritzmann, Ulrike, Hinzke, Denise, Guo, Er-Jia, Cramer, Joel, Jakob, Gerhard, Onbasli, Mehmet C., Kim, Dong Hun, Ross, Caroline A., Jungfleisch, Matthias B., Hillebrands, Burkard, Nowak, Ulrich, and Kläui, Mathias. Fri . "Length Scale of the Spin Seebeck Effect". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.096602. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1371003.
@article{osti_1371003,
title = {Length Scale of the Spin Seebeck Effect},
author = {Kehlberger, Andreas and Ritzmann, Ulrike and Hinzke, Denise and Guo, Er-Jia and Cramer, Joel and Jakob, Gerhard and Onbasli, Mehmet C. and Kim, Dong Hun and Ross, Caroline A. and Jungfleisch, Matthias B. and Hillebrands, Burkard and Nowak, Ulrich and Kläui, Mathias},
abstractNote = {We study the origin of the spin Seebeck effect in yttrium iron garnet (YIG) samples for film thicknesses from 20 nm to 50 μm at room temperature and 50 K. Our results exhibit a characteristic increase of the longitudinal spin Seebeck effect amplitude with the thickness of the insulating ferrimagnetic YIG, which levels off at a critical thickness that increases with decreasing temperature. The observed behavior cannot be explained as an interface effect or by variations of the material parameters. Comparison to numerical simulations of thermal magnonic spin currents yields qualitative agreement for the thickness dependence resulting from the finite magnon propagation length. This allows us to trace the origin of the observed signals to genuine bulk magnonic spin currents due to the spin Seebeck effect ruling out an interface origin and allowing us to gauge the reach of thermally excited magnons in this system for different temperatures. At low temperature, even quantitative agreement with the simulations is found.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.096602},
journal = {Physical Review Letters},
number = 9,
volume = 115,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Aug 28 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Fri Aug 28 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}

Journal Article:

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Cited by: 140 works
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Figures / Tables:

FIG. 1 FIG. 1: Spin Seebeck coefficient as a function of YIG layer thickness for samples produced by PLD (a) and LPE (b). The series sorting for the PLD samples highlights an identical interface. Data points are connected for clarity. The inset of (a) shows a schematic depiction of the sample structuremore » and setup.« less

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Magnon Polarons in the Spin Seebeck Effect
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Thermally induced magnon accumulation in two-sublattice magnets
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Spin transport in multilayer systems with fully epitaxial NiO thin films
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text, January 2018


Spin transport across antiferromagnets induced by the spin Seebeck effect
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text, January 2018


Boltzmann approach to the longitudinal spin Seebeck effect
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Transient response of spin Peltier effect revealed by lock-in thermoreflectance measurement
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Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.