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Thermoelectric effects refer to the voltage generation from temperature gradients in condensed matter. Although various power generators are made from them, all the known effects, such as Seebeck effect, require macroscopic temperature gradients; since the sign of the generated voltage is reversed by reversing the temperature gradient, the net voltage disappears when the temperature distribution fluctuates temporarily or spatially with a macroscopic temperature gradient of zero. It is impossible to utilize such temperature fluctuations in the conventional thermoelectric effects, a situation which limits their application. Here we report the observation of a second-order nonlinear thermoelectric effect; we develop a method to measure nonlinear thermoelectricity and observe that a superconducting MoGe film on Y 3 Fe 5 O 12 generates a voltage proportional to the square of the applied temperature gradient. The nonlinear thermoelectric generation demonstrated here provides a way for making power generators that produce electric power from temperature fluctuations., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

When excited, the magnetization in a magnet precesses around the field in an anticlockwise manner on a timescale governed by viscous magnetization damping, after which any information carried by the initial actuation seems to be lost. This damping appears to be a fundamental bottleneck for the use of magnets in information processing. However, here we demonstrate the recall of the magnetization-precession phase after times that exceed the damping timescale by two orders of magnitude using dedicated two-colour microwave pump-probe experiments for a Y 3 Fe 5 O 12 microstructured film. Time-resolved magnetization state tomography confirms the persistent magnetic coherence by revealing a double-exponential decay of magnetization correlation. We attribute persistent magnetic coherence to a feedback effect, that is, coherent coupling of the uniform precession with long-lived excitations at the minima of the spin-wave dispersion relation. Our finding liberates magnetic systems from the strong damping in nanostructures that has limited their use in coherent information storage and processing., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Antiferromagnetic materials have been proposed as new types of narrowband THz spintronic devices owing to their ultrafast spin dynamics. Manipulating coherently their spin dynamics, however, remains a key challenge that is envisioned to be accomplished by spin-orbit torques or direct optical excitations. Here, we demonstrate the combined generation of broadband THz (incoherent) magnons and narrowband (coherent) magnons at 1 THz in low damping thin films of NiO/Pt. We evidence, experimentally and through modeling, two excitation processes of spin dynamics in NiO: an off-resonant instantaneous optical spin torque in (111) oriented films and a strain-wave-induced THz torque induced by ultrafast Pt excitation in (001) oriented films. Both phenomena lead to the emission of a THz signal through the inverse spin Hall effect in the adjacent heavy metal layer. We unravel the characteristic timescales of the two excitation processes found to be < 50 fs and > 300 fs, respectively, and thus open new routes towards the development of fast opto-spintronic devices based on antiferromagnetic materials., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

When the electric conductance of a nano-sized metal is measured at low temperatures, it often exhibits complex but reproducible patterns as a function of external magnetic fields called quantum fingerprints in electric conductance. Such complex patterns are due to quantum-mechanical interference of conduction electrons; when thermal disturbance is feeble and coherence of the electrons extends all over the sample, the quantum interference pattern reflects microscopic structures, such as crystalline defects and the shape of the sample, giving rise to complicated interference. Although the interference pattern carries such microscopic information, it looks so random that it has not been analysed. Here we show that machine learning allows us to decipher quantum fingerprints; fingerprint patterns in magneto-conductance are shown to be transcribed into spatial images of electron wave function intensities (WIs) in a sample by using generative machine learning. The output WIs reveal quantum interference states of conduction electrons, as well as sample shapes. The present result augments the human ability to identify quantum states, and it should allow microscopy of quantum nanostructures in materials by making use of quantum fingerprints., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

The interplay among magnetization and deformation of solids has long been an important issue in magnetism, the elucidation of which has made great progress in material physics. Controlling volume and shapes of matter is now indispensable to realizing various actuators for precision machinery and nanotechnology. Here, we show that the volume of a solid can be manipulated by injecting a spin current: a spin current volume effect (SVE). By using a magnet Tb 0.3 Dy 0.7 Fe 2 exhibiting strong spin-lattice coupling, we demonstrate that the sample volume changes in response to a spin current injected by spin Hall effects. Theoretical calculation reflecting spin-current induced modulation of magnetization fluctuation well reproduces the experimental results. The SVE expands the scope of spintronics into making mechanical drivers., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

A triplon refers to a fictitious particle that carries angular momentum S=1 corresponding to the elementary excitation in a broad class of quantum dimerized spin systems. Such systems without magnetic order have long been studied as a testing ground for quantum properties of spins. Although triplons have been found to play a central role in thermal and magnetic properties in dimerized magnets with singlet correlation, a spin angular momentum flow carried by triplons, a triplon current, has not been detected yet. Here we report spin Seebeck effects induced by a triplon current: triplon spin Seebeck effect, using a spin-Peierls system CuGeO 3 . The result shows that the heating-driven triplon transport induces spin current whose sign is positive, opposite to the spin-wave cases in magnets. The triplon spin Seebeck effect persists far below the spin-Peierls transition temperature, being consistent with a theoretical calculation for triplon spin Seebeck effects., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

Thermoelectric effects have been applied to power generators and temperature sensors that convert waste heat into electricity. The effects, however, have been limited to electrons to occur, and inevitably disappear at low temperatures due to electronic entropy quenching. Here, we report thermoelectric generation caused by nuclear spins in a solid: nuclear-spin Seebeck effect. The sample is a magnetically ordered material MnCO 3 having a large nuclear spin (I = 5/2) of 55 Mn nuclei and strong hyperfine coupling, with a Pt contact. In the system, we observe low-temperature thermoelectric signals down to 100 mK due to nuclear-spin excitation. Our theoretical calculation in which interfacial Korringa process is taken into consideration quantitatively reproduces the results. The nuclear thermoelectric effect demonstrated here offers a way for exploring thermoelectric science and technologies at ultralow temperatures., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

Hydrodynamic motion can generate a flux of electron-spin's angular momentum via the coupling between fluid rotation and electron spins. Such hydrodynamic generation, called spin hydrodynamic generation (SHDG), has recently attracted attention in a wide range of fields, especially in spintronics. Spintronics deals with spin-mediated interconversion taking place on a micro or nano scale because of the spin-diffusion length scale. To be fully incorporated into the interconversion, SHDG physics should also be established in such a minute scale, where most fluids exhibit a laminar flow. Here, we report electric voltage generation due to the SHDG in a laminar flow of a liquid-metal mercury. The experimental results show a scaling rule unique to the laminar-flow SHDG. Furthermore, its energy conversion efficiency turns out to be about 10 5 greater than of the turbulent one. Our findings reveal that the laminar-flow SHDG is suitable to downsizing and to extend the coverage of fluid spintronics.

A helimagnet is a chiral magnet in which the direction of the magnetic moment spatially rotates in a plane perpendicular to the propagation vector. The sense of the rotation known as spin helicity is a robust degree of freedom of matter and may provide a new concept of magnetic memory if it can be electrically controlled and detected. Here we show that the helicity can be controlled by magnetic fields and electric currents in an itinerant helimagnet MnP. Second-harmonic resistivity measurements allow us to read out the controlled helicity. In contract to an insulating multiferroic magnet, in which spin rotation was shown to be controllable by an electric field, we achieve helicity manipulation by using an electric current in the conducting helimagnet. The controllability of the spin helicity may pave the way to new method of realizing magnetic memories based on the spin internal degrees of freedom.

The recent discovery of spin current transmission through antiferromagnetic insulating materials opens up vast opportunities for fundamental physics and spintronics applications. The question currently surrounding this topic is: whether and how could THz antiferromagnetic magnons mediate a GHz spin current? This mismatch of frequencies becomes particularly critical for the case of coherent ac spin current, raising the fundamental question of whether a GHz ac spin current can ever keep its coherence inside an antiferromagnetic insulator and so drive the spin precession of another ferromagnet layer coherently? Utilizing element- and time-resolved x-ray pump-probe measurements on Py/Ag/CoO/Ag/Fe 75 Co 25 /MgO(001) heterostructures, here we demonstrate that a coherent GHz ac spin current pumped by the Py ferromagnetic resonance can transmit coherently across an antiferromagnetic CoO insulating layer to drive a coherent spin precession of the Fe 75 Co 25 layer. Further measurement results favor thermal magnons rather than evanescent spin waves as the mediator of the coherent ac spin current in CoO.

Resonant enhancement of spin Seebeck effect (SSE) due to phonons was recently discovered in Y[Formula: see text]Fe[Formula: see text]O[Formula: see text] (YIG). This effect is explained by hybridization between the magnon and phonon dispersions. However, this effect was observed at low temperatures and high magnetic fields, limiting the scope for applications. Here we report observation of phonon-resonant enhancement of SSE at room temperature and low magnetic field. We observe in Lu[Formula: see text]BiFe[Formula: see text]GaO[Formula: see text] an enhancement 700% greater than that in a YIG film and at very low magnetic fields around 10[Formula: see text] T, almost one order of magnitude lower than that of YIG. The result can be explained by the change in the magnon dispersion induced by magnetic compensation due to the presence of non-magnetic ion substitutions. Our study provides a way to tune the magnon response in a crystal by chemical doping, with potential applications for spintronic devices.

The discovery of new materials that efficiently transmit spin currents has been important for spintronics and material science. The electric insulator Gd 3 Ga 5 O 12 (GGG), a standard substrate for growing magnetic films, can be a spin current generator, but has never been considered as a superior conduit for spin currents. Here we report spin current propagation in paramagnetic GGG over several microns. Surprisingly, spin transport persists up to temperatures of 100 K [Formula: see text] T g  = 180 mK, the magnetic glass-like transition temperature of GGG. At 5 K and 3.5 T, we find a spin diffusion length λ GGG  = 1.8 ± 0.2 μm and a spin conductivity σ GGG  = (7.3 ± 0.3) × 10 4 Sm -1 that is larger than that of the record quality magnet Y 3 Fe 5 O 12 (YIG). We conclude that exchange stiffness is not required for efficient spin transport, which challenges conventional models and provides new material-design strategies for spintronic devices.

Electric current has been used to send electricity to far distant places. On the other hand, spin current, a flow of electron spin, can in principle also send angular momentum to distant places. In a magnet, there is a universal spin carrier called a spin wave, a wave-type excitation of magnetization. Since spin waves exhibit a long propagation length, it should be able to send angular momentum that can generate torque and force at a distant place: a new function of magnets. Here we observe mechanical angular momentum transmission and force generation due to spin waves injected into Y 3 Fe 5 O 12 by the spin-Seebeck effect. The spin-wave current, transmitted through a Y 3 Fe 5 O 12 micro cantilever, was found to create a mechanical force on the cantilever as a non-local reaction of the spin-Seebeck effect. Spin-wave current can be generated remotely even in open circuits, and it can be used to drive micro mechanical devices.

A rectenna, standing for a rectifying antenna, is an apparatus which generates d.c. electricity from electric fluctuations. It is expected to realize wireless power transmission as well as energy harvesting from environmental radio waves. To realize such rectification, devices that are made up of internal atomic asymmetry such as an asymmetric junction have been necessary so far. Here we report a material that spontaneously generates electricity by rectifying environmental fluctuations without using atomic asymmetry. The sample is a common superconductor without lowered crystalline symmetry, but, just by putting it in an asymmetric magnetic environment, it turns into a rectifier and starts generating electricity. Superconducting vortex strings only annihilate and nucleate at surfaces, and this allows the bulk electrons to feel surface fluctuations in an asymmetric environment: a vortex rectenna. The rectification and generation can be switched on and off with only a slight change in temperature or external magnetic fields.

Colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) refers to a large change in electrical conductivity induced by a magnetic field in the vicinity of a metal-insulator transition and has inspired extensive studies for decades 1,2 . Here we demonstrate an analogous spin effect near the Néel temperature, T N  = 296 K, of the antiferromagnetic insulator Cr 2 O 3 . Using a yttrium iron garnet YIG/Cr 2 O 3 /Pt trilayer, we injected a spin current from the YIG into the Cr 2 O 3 layer and collected, via the inverse spin Hall effect, the spin signal transmitted into the heavy metal Pt. We observed a two orders of magnitude difference in the transmitted spin current within 14 K of the Néel temperature. This transition between spin conducting and non-conducting states was also modulated by a magnetic field in isothermal conditions. This effect, which we term spin colossal magnetoresistance (SCMR), has the potential to simplify the design of fundamental spintronics components, for instance, by enabling the realization of spin-current switches or spin-current-based memories.

Information transport and processing by pure magnonic spin currents in insulators is a promising alternative to conventional charge-current-driven spintronic devices. The absence of Joule heating and reduced spin wave damping in insulating ferromagnets have been suggested for implementing efficient logic devices. After the successful demonstration of a majority gate based on the superposition of spin waves, further components are required to perform complex logic operations. Here, we report on magnetization orientation-dependent spin current detection signals in collinear magnetic multilayers inspired by the functionality of a conventional spin valve. In Y 3 Fe 5 O 12 |CoO|Co, we find that the detection amplitude of spin currents emitted by ferromagnetic resonance spin pumping depends on the relative alignment of the Y 3 Fe 5 O 12 and Co magnetization. This yields a spin valve-like behavior with an amplitude change of 120% in our systems. We demonstrate the reliability of the effect and identify its origin by both temperature-dependent and power-dependent measurements.

To know the properties of a particle or a wave, one should measure how its energy changes with its momentum. The relation between them is called the dispersion relation, which encodes essential information of the kinetics. In a magnet, the wave motion of atomic spins serves as an elementary excitation, called a spin wave, and behaves like a fictitious particle. Although the dispersion relation of spin waves governs many of the magnetic properties, observation of their entire dispersion is one of the challenges today. Spin waves whose dispersion is dominated by magnetostatic interaction are called pure-magnetostatic waves, which are still missing despite of their practical importance. Here, we report observation of the band dispersion relation of pure-magnetostatic waves by developing a table-top all-optical spectroscopy named spin-wave tomography. The result unmasks characteristics of pure-magnetostatic waves. We also demonstrate time-resolved measurements, which reveal coherent energy transfer between spin waves and lattice vibrations.

The Peltier effect modulates the temperature of a junction comprising two different conductors in response to charge currents across the junction, which is used in solid-state heat pumps and temperature controllers in electronics. Recently, in spintronics, a spin counterpart of the Peltier effect was observed. The 'spin Peltier effect' modulates the temperature of a magnetic junction in response to spin currents. Here we report thermal imaging of the spin Peltier effect; using active thermography technique, we visualize the temperature modulation induced by spin currents injected into a magnetic insulator from an adjacent metal. The thermal images reveal characteristic distribution of spin-current-induced heat sources, resulting in the temperature change confined only in the vicinity of the metal/insulator interface. This finding allows us to estimate the actual magnitude of the temperature modulation induced by the spin Peltier effect, which is more than one order of magnitude greater than previously believed.

Spin fluctuation and transition have always been one of the central topics of magnetism and condensed matter science. Experimentally, the spin fluctuation is found transcribed onto scattering intensity in the neutron-scattering process, which is represented by dynamical magnetic susceptibility and maximized at phase transitions. Importantly, a neutron carries spin without electric charge, and therefore it can bring spin into a sample without being disturbed by electric energy. However, large facilities such as a nuclear reactor are necessary. Here we show that spin pumping, frequently used in nanoscale spintronic devices, provides a desktop microprobe for spin transition; spin current is a flux of spin without an electric charge and its transport reflects spin excitation. We demonstrate detection of antiferromagnetic transition in ultra-thin CoO films via frequency-dependent spin-current transmission measurements, which provides a versatile probe for phase transition in an electric manner in minute devices.

Applying magnetic fields has been the method of choice to magnetize non-magnetic materials, but they are difficult to focus. The magneto-electric effect and voltage-induced magnetization generate magnetization by applied electric fields, but only in special compounds or heterostructures. Here we demonstrate that a simple metal such as gold can be magnetized by a temperature gradient or magnetic resonance when in contact with a magnetic insulator by observing an anomalous Hall-like effect, which directly proves the breakdown of time-reversal symmetry. Such Hall measurements give experimental access to the spectral spin Hall conductance of the host metal, which is closely related to other spin caloritronics phenomena such as the spin Nernst effect and serves as a reference for theoretical calculation.

Magnons are the elementary excitations of a magnetically ordered system. In ferromagnets, only a single band of low-energy magnons needs to be considered, but in ferrimagnets the situation is more complex owing to different magnetic sublattices involved. In this case, low lying optical modes exist that can affect the dynamical response. Here we show that the spin Seebeck effect (SSE) is sensitive to the complexities of the magnon spectrum. The SSE is caused by thermally excited spin dynamics that are converted to a voltage by the inverse spin Hall effect at the interface to a heavy metal contact. By investigating the temperature dependence of the SSE in the ferrimagnet gadolinium iron garnet, with a magnetic compensation point near room temperature, we demonstrate that higher-energy exchange magnons play a key role in the SSE.

Surface plasmons, free-electron collective oscillations in metallic nanostructures, provide abundant routes to manipulate light-electron interactions that can localize light energy and alter electromagnetic field distributions at subwavelength scales. The research field of plasmonics thus integrates nano-photonics with electronics. In contrast, electronics is also entering a new era of spintronics, where spin currents play a central role in driving devices. However, plasmonics and spin-current physics have so far been developed independently. Here we report the generation of spin currents by surface plasmon resonance. Using Au nanoparticles embedded in Pt/BiY(2)Fe(5)O(12) bilayer films, we show that, when the Au nanoparticles fulfill the surface-plasmon-resonance conditions, spin currents are generated across the Pt/BiY(2)Fe(5)O(12) interface. This spin-current generation cannot be explained by conventional heating effects, requiring us to introduce nonequilibrium magnons excited by surface-plasmon-induced evanescent electromagnetic fields in BiY(2)Fe(5)O(12). This plasmonic spin pumping integrates surface plasmons with spin-current physics, opening the door to plasmonic spintronics.

Controlling spin-related material properties by electronic means is a key step towards future spintronic technologies. The spin Hall effect (SHE) has become increasingly important for generating, detecting and using spin currents, but its strength--quantified in terms of the SHE angle--is ultimately fixed by the magnitude of the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) present for any given material system. However, if the electrons generating the SHE can be controlled by populating different areas (valleys) of the electronic structure with different SOC characteristic the SHE angle can be tuned directly within a single sample. Here we report the manipulation of the SHE in bulk GaAs at room temperature by means of an electrical intervalley transition induced in the conduction band. The spin Hall angle was determined by measuring an electromotive force driven by photoexcited spin-polarized electrons drifting through GaAs Hall bars. By controlling electron populations in different (Γ and L) valleys, we manipulated the angle from 0.0005 to 0.02. This change by a factor of 40 is unprecedented in GaAs and the highest value achieved is comparable to that of the heavy metal Pt.

When energy is introduced into a region of matter, it heats up and the local temperature increases. This energy spontaneously diffuses away from the heated region. In general, heat should flow from warmer to cooler regions and it is not possible to externally change the direction of heat conduction. Here we show a magnetically controllable heat flow caused by a spin-wave current. The direction of the flow can be switched by applying a magnetic field. When microwave energy is applied to a region of ferrimagnetic Y3Fe5O12, an end of the magnet far from this region is found to be heated in a controlled manner and a negative temperature gradient towards it is formed. This is due to unidirectional energy transfer by the excitation of spin-wave modes without time-reversal symmetry and to the conversion of spin waves into heat. When a Y3Fe5O12 film with low damping coefficients is used, spin waves are observed to emit heat at the sample end up to 10 mm away from the excitation source. The magnetically controlled remote heating we observe is directly applicable to the fabrication of a heat-flow controller.

Energy harvesting technologies, which generate electricity from environmental energy, have been attracting great interest because of their potential to power ubiquitously deployed sensor networks and mobile electronics. Of these technologies, thermoelectric (TE) conversion is a particularly promising candidate, because it can directly generate electricity from the thermal energy that is available in various places. Here we show a novel TE concept based on the spin Seebeck effect, called 'spin-thermoelectric (STE) coating', which is characterized by a simple film structure, convenient scaling capability, and easy fabrication. The STE coating, with a 60-nm-thick bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Bi:YIG) film, is applied by means of a highly efficient process on a non-magnetic substrate. Notably, spin-current-driven TE conversion is successfully demonstrated under a temperature gradient perpendicular to such an ultrathin STE-coating layer (amounting to only 0.01% of the total sample thickness). We also show that the STE coating is applicable even on glass surfaces with amorphous structures. Such a versatile implementation of the TE function may pave the way for novel applications making full use of omnipresent heat.

Spintronics is about the coupled electron spin and charge transport in condensed-matter structures and devices. The recently invigorated field of spin caloritronics focuses on the interaction of spins with heat currents, motivated by newly discovered physical effects and strategies to improve existing thermoelectric devices. Here we give an overview of our understanding and the experimental state-of-the-art concerning the coupling of spin, charge and heat currents in magnetic thin films and nanostructures. Known phenomena are classified either as independent electron (such as spin-dependent Seebeck) effects in metals that can be understood by a model of two parallel spin-transport channels with different thermoelectric properties, or as collective (such as spin Seebeck) effects, caused by spin waves, that also exist in insulating ferromagnets. The search to find applications--for example heat sensors and waste heat recyclers--is on.

The spin-orbit interaction in a solid couples the spin of an electron to its momentum. This coupling gives rise to mutual conversion between spin and charge currents: the direct and inverse spin Hall effects. The spin Hall effects have been observed in metals and semiconductors. However, the spin/charge conversion has not been realized in one of the most fundamental semiconductors, silicon, where accessing the spin Hall effects has been believed to be difficult because of its very weak spin-orbit interaction. Here we report observation of the inverse spin Hall effect in silicon at room temperature. The spin/charge current conversion efficiency, the spin Hall angle, is obtained as 0.0001 for a p-type silicon film. In spite of the small spin Hall angle, we found a clear electric voltage due to the inverse spin Hall effect in the p-Si film, demonstrating that silicon can be used as a spin-current detector.