Diffusion origin of thermopower peaks in spin-fluctuation alloys

Abstract

Spin-fluctuation alloys show large low-temperature thermopower peaks, which for Pd-Ni and Ir-Fe increase in magnitude as impurity concentration increases. Although this increase suggests a drag effect it is also consistent with a diffusion origin for the peaks of the large extraneous scattering in the alloys is taken into account. Further measurements on Pd-Ni and (Pd-Ni)-Pt alloys specifically designed to distinguish drag and diffusion effects show that the spin-fluctuation thermopower peaks have a diffusion origin.