Eur. Phys. J. B (2014) 87: 254
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2014-50387-6

Regular Article

Spin thermopower in interacting Rashba dots

Department of Physics, Federal University of Amazonas, Av. Rodrigo Octavio 3000-Japiim, 69077-000 Manaus, AM, Brazil

^a e-mail: angsula@ufam.edu.br

Received: 11 June 2014
Received in final form: 14 August 2014
Published online: 1 November 2014

Abstract

Spintronics or spin electronics has been an active area of research based on the active control and manipulation of spin degrees of freedom. In this work we study the thermoelectric properties of a Rashba dot using the Anderson model in presence of the repulsive Coulomb interaction within the mean-field formalism. The temperature difference applied across the dot drives a spin current which depends on the Rashba coupling and chemical potential. We demonstrate that the Rashba dot in presence of the Coulomb interaction behaves as a spin filter for selected values of the chemical potential and is able to filter electrons by their spin orientation. The spin thermopower has also been studied where the effects of the impurity energy level, temperature and also the Rashba term have been observed.