Local Spin-Seebeck Effect Enabling Two-Dimensional Position Sensing

Abstract

The spin-Seebeck effect (SSE) in magnetic insulators is shown to be applicable to two-dimensional (2D) position sensing using an Y 3 Fe 5 O 12 (YIG) slab covered with a Pt-film mesh. When a part of the YIG-slab/Pt-mesh sample was heated, the position of the heated part of the sample was found to be known from the measured SSE signals in the Pt mesh. Since the SSE-based position-sensing method allows commonly-used insulators to produce 2D position information, it may be useful for constructing versatile thermally-driven user-interface devices and image-information sensors.