Spin Hall and spin Nernst effect in dilute ternary alloys

Abstract

We report on ab initio studies of the spin Hall and spin Nernst effect in dilute ternary alloys. Our calculations are performed for a Cu host with different types of substitutional impurities. The obtained numerical results are well approximated by Matthiessen's rule relying on the constituent binary alloys. We show that the spin Nernst effect can be significantly more efficient in a ternary alloy with respect to the related binary alloys. Together with the application of Matthiessen's rule this opens an easy way to design materials for spintronics applications.