Complete magnetic control over the superconducting thermoelectric effect

Abstract

Giant thermoelectric effects are known to arise at the interface between superconductors and strongly polarized ferromagnets, enabling the construction of efficient thermoelectric generators. We predict that the thermopower of such a generator can be completely controlled by a magnetic input signal: Not only can the thermopower be toggled on and off by rotating a magnet, but it can even be entirely reversed. This in situ control diverges from conventional thermoelectrics, where the thermopower is usually fixed by the device design.

Phase-dependent charge and heat current in thermally biased short Josephson junctions formed at helical edge states

“…Recently, some efforts have been put to enhance thermal charge current, within the linear regime, in superconducting junctions instead of bare superconductors by breaking the spin-symmetry using ferromagnetic elements [1], forming ferromagnet/superconductor [2][3][4][5][6][7][8]13] or anti-ferromagnet/superconductor hybrid structures [14]. Research in this direction has been boosted after the experimental verification in 2016 [2], where an excellent agreement with the theoretical prediction [1] was confirmed.…”

“…The study of thermal gradient-induced current in superconductors and superconducting junctions has been rejuvenated in recent years, breaking the concepts of poor thermal current in superconductors [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. The thermal current in ordinary superconductors was expected to be low or even vanishing, primarily because of the superconducting gap in the density of states.…”