Spin-Currents and Spin-Pumping Forces for Spintronics

Thermodynamic restrictions on linear reversible and irreversible thermo-electro-magneto-mechanical processes

A unified thermodynamic framework for the characterization of functional materials is developed. This framework encompasses linear reversible and irreversible processes with thermal, electrical, magnetic, and/or mechanical effects coupled. The comprehensive framework combines the principles of classical equilibrium and non-equilibrium thermodynamics with electrodynamics of continua in the infinitesimal strain regime. In the first part of this paper, linear Thermo-Electro-Magneto-Mechanical (TEMM) quasistatic processes are characterized. Thermodynamic stability conditions are further imposed on the linear constitutive model and restrictions on the corresponding material constants are derived. The framework is then extended to irreversible transport phenomena including thermoelectric, thermomagnetic and the state-of-the-art spintronic and spin caloritronic effects. Using Onsager's reciprocity relationships and the dissipation inequality, restrictions on the kinetic coefficients corresponding to charge, heat and spin transport processes are derived. All the constitutive models are accompanied by multiphysics interaction diagrams that highlight the various processes that can be characterized using this framework.

Transport equations of energy for ferromagnetic insulators in contact with electrodes

A phenomenological derivation of the transport equations for ferromagnetic moments and associated energy and heat is proposed. The model describes the transfer of energy through an interface composed of a ferromagnetic insulator in contact with normal electrodes. A reduction method applied to the ferromagnetic degrees of freedom allows a two-channel model to be defined for the transport of magnetic moments. It is shown that a heat current flowing into the insulating ferromagnet-produced e.g. by electromagnetic resonance, thermal gradient, magneto-mechanical or magneto-optical excitations-can generate a magneto-voltaic potential and a pure spin-current in the non-ferromagnetic electrode.