Theory of the magnon-mediated tunnel magneto-Seebeck effect

The tunnel magneto-Seebeck effect is the dependence of the thermopower of magnetic tunnel junctions on the magnetic configuration. It is conventionally interpreted in terms of a thermoelectric generalization of the tunnel magnetoresistance. Here, we investigate the heat-driven electron transport in these junctions associated with electron-magnon scattering, using stochastic Landau-Lifshitz phenomenology and quantum kinetic theory. Our findings challenge the widely accepted single-electron picture of the tunneling thermopower in magnetic junctions.