Abstract
The spin Seebeck effect refers to the conversion of a heat current into a spin voltage in a ferromagnet/paramagnet junction. Since the spin Seebeck effect appears not only in metals and semiconductors but also in magnetic insulators, it enables the construction of "insulator-based thermoelectric generators" in combination with the inverse spin Hall effect, which would be impossible if only conventional thermoelectric technology were used. In this paper, we briefly report on the experimental observation of the spin Seebeck effect in magnetic insulator/metal junctions and discuss the potential for novel thermoelectric technologies based on spin currents.
