We report on the observation of the spin Seebeck effect in antiferromagnetic MnF2. A device scale on-chip heater is deposited on a bilayer of Pt (4 nm)/MnF2 (110) (30 nm) grown by molecular beam epitaxy on a MgF2 (110) substrate. Using Pt as a spin detector layer it is possible to measure thermally generated spin current from MnF2 through the inverse spin Hall effect. The low temperature (2 - 80 K) and high magnetic field (up to 140 kOe) regime is explored. A clear spin flop transition corresponding to the sudden rotation of antiferromagnetic spins out of the easy axis is observed in the spin Seebeck signal when large magnetic fields (>9 T) are applied parallel the easy axis of the MnF2 thin film. When magnetic field is applied perpendicular to the easy axis, the spin flop transition is absent, as expected.
@article{arxiv.1509.00439,
title = {Antiferromagnetic spin Seebeck Effect},
author = {Stephen M. Wu and Wei Zhang and Amit KC and Pavel Borisov and John E. Pearson and J. Samuel Jiang and David Lederman and Axel Hoffmann and Anand Bhattacharya},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1509.00439},
year = {2016}
}