Tunable spin Seebeck effect in a double Rashba molecule embedded in an Aharonov–Bohm interferometer

Abstract

We study the spin-dependent thermoelectric properties of a Rashba quantum dot-molecule embedded in an Aharonov–Bohm interferometer. We show that by tuning conveniently both the Aharonov–Bohm and the Rashba spin orbit-induced phases, the different components of spin can have Seebeck coefficients of equal magnitude and different signs, so that the charge Seebeck coefficient vanishes while the spin Seebeck coefficient is finite. This means that a temperature gradient can produce in this system a spin voltage at the time that the charge voltage is zero, occurring an equivalent to the spin Seebeck effect observed in ferromagnets.