Dissipation due to pure spin-current generated by spin pumping

Tomohiro Taniguchi, Wayne M. Saslow

Published 2014-12-01Version 1

Based on spin-dependent transport theory and thermodynamics, we develop a generalized theory of the Joule heating in the presence of a spin current. Along with the conventional Joule heating consisting of an electric current and electrochemical potential, it is found that the spin current and spin accumulation give an additional dissipation because the spin-dependent scatterings inside bulk and ferromagnetic/nonmagnetic interface lead to a change of entropy. The theory is applied to investigate the dissipation due to pure spin-current generated by spin pumping across a ferromagnetic/nonmagnetic/ferromagnetic multilayer. The dissipation arises from an interface because the spin pumping is a transfer of both the spin angular momentum and the energy from the ferromagnet to conduction electrons near the interface. It is found that the dissipation is proportional to the enhancement of the Gilbert damping constant by spin pumping.