Making flexible spin caloritronic devices with interconnected nanowire networks

Sci Adv. 2019 Mar 1;5(3):eaav2782. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aav2782. eCollection 2019 Mar.

Abstract

Spin caloritronics has recently emerged from the combination of spintronics and thermoelectricity. Here, we show that flexible, macroscopic spin caloritronic devices based on large-area interconnected magnetic nanowire networks can be used to enable controlled Peltier cooling of macroscopic electronic components with an external magnetic field. We experimentally demonstrate that three-dimensional CoNi/Cu multilayered nanowire networks exhibit an extremely high, magnetically modulated thermoelectric power factor up to 7.5 mW/K2m and large spin-dependent Seebeck and Peltier coefficients of -11.5 μV/K and -3.45 mV at room temperature, respectively. Our investigation reveals the possibility of performing efficient magnetic control of heat flux for thermal management of electronic devices and constitutes a simple and cost-effective pathway for fabrication of large-scale flexible and shapeable thermoelectric coolers exploiting the spin degree of freedom.